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Installing with
Resized Hard-Drive - Part 3
Partition Research for: Mepis 6 Series by: je.saist Preparation Guides: Before a FAT32 or NTFS drive with Windows install can be resized there are numerous steps that need to be taken to prepare Microsoft Windows to be resized. This Guide presumes that the CCleaner, Check Disk, and Defragment Guides have been completed. CCleaner
| Check
Disk | Defragment
| Regseeker
| WinASO
Resize
Part 1 | Resize
Part 2 | Resize Part 3
Now, I personally am not a fan of resizing a hard-drive with Windows Installed on it in order to install Mepis. I strongly recommend that you do not resize a hard-drive to install any linux. Following
this Guide WILL
PUT YOUR INFORMATION AT RISK.
Not MAY, it WILL. Over both the IDE and SATA Guides I used an Extended partition to put 3 partitions onto the drive, one for /root, one for /swap, and one for /home. However, when building the Merge guide I did not bother with the Extended partition. As the picture names indicate, this part of the guide was supposed to occur between steps 16 and 32 over Parts 1 and 2 of the Merge guide. However, realizing that many new users would simply follow along with the pictures, I decided to place this at the end of Merge guide. This guide then, or this portion of the Merge guide, demonstrates the normal partition limit. This is rather important considering that many Dell, HP, and Gateway computers with Windows Pre-installed may have one or two hidden partitions that will prevent Mepis, or any Linux, from being installed without a Logical or Extended Partition. This can be a problem in that quiet often a Windows Recovery or Installation disc is not shipped with several OEM systems. When something goes wrong and the customer has to re-install Windows, many times the only install media available is on the hidden recovery partition. 1: We are starting at Step 7 from Part 1, Left Clicking on /dev/sda to select the partition.  2: Again, we have our information about the drive up.  3: Followed by Left Clicking on the active ntfs partition (or fat32 for Windows 95 / 98 / ME)  4: And again Right Clicking to bring up the context menu  5: With another Left Click on Resize  6: Once again we are looking at sizes measured in megabytes.  7: And once again, I'm changing the size to GB for Gigabytes. The system now shows a size of 153.36 gigs.  8: And as before in Part 1, the New Size is 100gigs.  9: Another Left Click on OK  10: I've got the same free partition with about 53.38gigs as before. Again, Left Click to Select the free partition  11: Right Click for the context menu and a Left Click on Create  12: Changing the size to be GB for gigabytes again.  13: This time however, I am going to set the size at just 10gigs.  14: Left Click on OK  15: I now have 43.38gigs left in the free partition.  16: Another Right Click for the context menu, and again a Left Click to Create  17: Now, I intend for this to be my swap file. So I'm first going to change that 43.38gig size  18: Take it down to just 1gig  19: Change my Partition Type to linux-swap  20: Left Click on Ok to confirm the change.  21: I now have one final free partition with 42.38gigs of space.  22: Right Click for the Context Menu... but Create is now grayed out.  Alright, lecture time: The free space after the ntfs partition helps screw with number of partitions that can be set, which is about 4. That is the point in using an Extended partition which allows us to set additional partitions inside one of the 4 active Primary Partitions. Now, if you completely wipe a drive clean, then partition, you can get all 3 linux partitions and a ntfs partition for windows onto the drive as shown below.  If you were following along and have qtparted set to Step #22 23: Left Click on Undo  24: We can see that we've lost the 1gig swap partition.  25: Left Click on Undo again  26: We should now be back where we started.  Return to the original Drive Partitioning in Part 1? Return to the Install shown in Part 2? Take me back to the Guides. |