How much HD space?

[katuzo]

I have a Lenovo X61 tablet which I run Vista Ultimate on. When I run PCLinuxOS 2009, I boot off a liveusb in persist mode. I wish to make my HD dual bootable, however, before I start, I know I must partition my HD. I know I can shrink the volume that Vista using Disk Management that is in Vista without hurting my Vista installed, creating unallocated space. The question is, how much hard drive should I allocate for PCLinuxOS? How many partitions do I need in PCLinuxOS? How should they be formatted?
Thanks
Richie

[Old-Polack]

I have a Lenovo X61 tablet which I run Vista Ultimate on. When I run PCLinuxOS 2009, I boot off a liveusb in persist mode. I wish to make my HD dual bootable, however, before I start, I know I must partition my HD. I know I can shrink the volume that Vista using Disk Management that is in Vista without hurting my Vista installed, creating unallocated space. The question is, how much hard drive should I allocate for PCLinuxOS? How many partitions do I need in PCLinuxOS? How should they be formatted?
Thanks
Richie

You seem to be leaving out some vital information, like how large the hard drive is, and how much of the available space is actually used by current data.

You need at least two partitions for Linux, one for swap and the other for /. Most people prefer a third partition for /home, or /data, to keep their personal data from being at risk if reinstalling the OS. Formatting should be with a Linux native file system, the default being ext3.

[arjaybe]

You should also decide if you want a common partition for sharing between the two OSes.

[katuzo]

If a common partition allows me to view pictures, play music, watch movies and share pdfs and documents between the two operating system, then I do certainly want that. Thanks for the idea
Richie

[arjaybe]

Yes it does, and if you get in the habit of saving your downloads and other files to it then you don't have to make your /home partition too big.  It should be safe to format the common partition to NTFS.  Make your swap partition the same size as your RAM.  Give your / partition 10 GB and, if you want a separate /home partition to simplify re-installs and major OS upgrades, give it a few GB as well.  Make the common partition whatever size you think you'll need.  The OS won't take 10 GB but it's good to have the space in case you want to do remasters.  Image manipulation programs and the like default to doing their machinations in /home, so it needs some headroom for that.

Let us see what your plan is, just to be sure.

[katuzo]

How does this look to you? Am I missing any partitions, are any too small/large?

I have a 500Gb HD.
C:/ - Window Vista 200GB NTFS
D:/ - Common Partition 200GB NTFS for pictures, videos, documents
E:/ home - PCLinuxOS 10GB NTFS
F:/ swap - 3GB (same size as ram) ext3

[arjaybe]

How does this look to you? Am I missing any partitions, are any too small/large?

I have a 500Gb HD.
C:/ - Window Vista 200GB NTFS
D:/ - Common Partition 200GB NTFS for pictures, videos, documents
E:/ home - PCLinuxOS 10GB NTFS
F:/ swap - 3GB (same size as ram) ext3

C:/ - Window Vista 200GB NTFS - this will be called sda1 in PCLinuxOS.
D:/ - Common Partition 200GB NTFS for pictures, videos, documents - won't be called "D:" in PCLinuxOS.  It will be sda2 and you might mount it as /mnt/data, for instance.  During install of PCLinuxOS you will be able to select this partition and tell it how to mount.  DO NOT FORMAT!
E:/ home - PCLinuxOS 10GB NTFS - this will not be your /home partition, it will be your / (pronounced root) partition where you will install PCLinuxOS.  Don't format this one NTFS, use ext3.  You can either let your /home be part of this, or you can create another partition to use as a separate /home.
F:/ swap - 3GB (same size as ram) ext3 - good.  If you create a separate partition for your home, it will show up in Windows as F: and swap will be G:

The Linux file system is quite different from what you're used to.  You won't see a bunch of separate drives (partitions) listed.  Everything is listed in a single tree.  It takes a while to get used to, but it's not too bad.

[katuzo]

D:/ - Common Partition 200GB NTFS for pictures, videos, documents - won't be called "D:" in PCLinuxOS.  It will be sda2 and you might mount it as /mnt/data, for instance.  During install of PCLinuxOS you will be able to select this partition and tell it how to mount.  DO NOT FORMAT!

Since I'll be squeezing my volume into a smaller size, won't the unallocated be already formatted?
Also, if it's not formatted, how am I going to store files on it.

It won't be a problem to have an additional partition in addition to / (root) called /home, if it's a benefit.

Richie

[arjaybe]

That DO NOT FORMAT was for during install of PCLinuxOS.  When you allocate your partitions during installation for / and /home and /mnt/data and swap, you'll be given the opportunity to format them.  You'll format / and /home partitions ext3 (I think swap takes care of itself but I can't remember), but if you've created the common partition in Windows and put anything on it you won't want to format it again.

When you shrink your Windows partition the space you gain is now unallocated and needs to be partitioned and those partitions will have to be formatted.  BTW, do you know about extended partitions?  Do you plan to create the new partitions while in Windows?

[thorper]

I have a Lenovo X61 tablet which I run Vista Ultimate on. When I run PCLinuxOS 2009, I boot off a liveusb in persist mode. I wish to make my HD dual bootable, however, before I start, I know I must partition my HD. I know I can shrink the volume that Vista using Disk Management that is in Vista without hurting my Vista installed, creating unallocated space. The question is, how much hard drive should I allocate for PCLinuxOS? How many partitions do I need in PCLinuxOS? How should they be formatted?
Thanks
Richie

I always use SystemRescueCD for formatting. This tool can be downloaded. On my dual boot laptop, which only has a 50gb HDD I resized as follows

WindowsXP to 20gb - I have an app that will only run on Windows so only need a basic system
PCLOS to 20gb - Only 1 partition which includes /home
/swap 2gb

I can place data on the Windows partition which is easily accessed from Linux.

Because you have a large HDD then I would suggest a separate /home and at least 25gb / partition which will give you space to make a remaster. If you only need Windows because it can pre-installed and you don't want use and don't want to remove it then make that partition as samll as possible. Don't forget that you will still have a Windows recovery partition, which you need to keep.

[katuzo]

Thanks for advice about SystemRescueCE/ I did download it and burn it to disc and then booted off of it. I notice that is had GParted on it, so I ran that and according to GParted is what I currently have.
dev/sda (465.76Gb)
dev/sda1 ntfs Label-Service002 16.67Gb
dev/sda2 ntfs Label-Vista 449Gb Boot

To recap, this is what I want?
dev/sda (465.76Gb)
dev/sda1 ntfs Label-Service002 16.67Gb
dev/sda2 ntfs Label Vista 200Gb Boot
dev/sda3 no format Label-Common Partition, mount as /mnt/data 200Gb
dev/sda4 ext3 / (Root) 10Gb
dev/sda5 ext3 /home this is where PCLinuxOS is ?Gb
dev/sda6 ext3 /swap 3Gb

Out of curiosity, what does sda stand for?

Thanks for help
Richie

[Old-Polack]

Thanks for advice about SystemRescueCE/ I did download it and burn it to disc and then booted off of it. I notice that is had GParted on it, so I ran that and according to GParted is what I currently have.
dev/sda (465.76Gb)
dev/sda1 ntfs Label-Service002 16.67Gb
dev/sda2 ntfs Label-Vista 449Gb Boot

To recap, this is what I want?
dev/sda (465.76Gb)
dev/sda1 ntfs Label-Service002 16.67Gb
dev/sda2 ntfs Label Vista 200Gb Boot
dev/sda3 no format Label-Common Partition, mount as /mnt/data 200Gb
dev/sda4 ext3 / (Root) 10Gb
dev/sda5 ext3 /home this is where PCLinuxOS is ?Gb
dev/sda6 ext3 /swap 3Gb

Out of curiosity, what does sda stand for?

Thanks for help
Richie

To answer the last first, that would be scsi drive a, the first drive in the SCSI chain.

As to partitions, if you want more than 4 partitions on a hard drive, you need to have an extended partition as one of your primary partitions. Logical partitions on that extended partition would start with /dev/sda5 even if the extended partition is the second primary partition. You won't know what each individual partitions designation might be, unless you first know the proper designations of the existing partitions, and plan from there. From a terminal;

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l           <Enter>

will show all the partitions on your system, as well as their proper designations.

[pags]

Thanks for advice about SystemRescueCE/ I did download it and burn it to disc and then booted off of it. I notice that is had GParted on it, so I ran that and according to GParted is what I currently have.
dev/sda (465.76Gb)
dev/sda1 ntfs Label-Service002 16.67Gb
dev/sda2 ntfs Label-Vista 449Gb Boot

To recap, this is what I want?
dev/sda (465.76Gb)
dev/sda1 ntfs Label-Service002 16.67Gb
dev/sda2 ntfs Label Vista 200Gb Boot
dev/sda3 no format Label-Common Partition, mount as /mnt/data 200Gb
dev/sda4 ext3 / (Root) 10Gb
dev/sda5 ext3 /home this is where PCLinuxOS is ?Gb
dev/sda6 ext3 /swap 3Gb

Out of curiosity, what does sda stand for?

Thanks for help
Richie

To answer the last first, that would be scsi drive a, the first drive in the SCSI chain.

As to partitions, if you want more than 4 partitions on a hard drive, you need to have an extended partition as one of your primary partitions. Logical partitions on that extended partition would start with /dev/sda5 even if the extended partition is the second primary partition. You won't know what each individual partitions designation might be, unless you first know the proper designations of the existing partitions, and plan from there. From a terminal;

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l           <Enter>

will show all the partitions on your system, as well as their proper designations.

Maybe this help clarify.  In place of your sugestion:

To recap, this is what I want?
dev/sda (465.76Gb)
dev/sda1 ntfs Label-Service002 16.67Gb
dev/sda2 ntfs Label Vista 200Gb Boot
dev/sda3 no format Label-Common Partition, mount as /mnt/data 200Gb
dev/sda4 ext3 / (Root) 10Gb
dev/sda5 ext3 /home this is where PCLinuxOS is ?Gb
dev/sda6 ext3 /swap 3Gb

You would want something similar to:

Code: [Select]

dev/sda (465.76Gb)
dev/sda1 ntfs Label-Service002 16.67Gb
dev/sda2 ntfs Label Vista 200Gb Boot
dev/sda3 <EXTENDED PARTITION>
dev/sda5 no format Label-Common Partition, mount as /mnt/data 200Gb
dev/sda6 ext3 / (Root) 10Gb
dev/sda7 ext3 /home this is where PCLinuxOS is ?Gb
dev/sda9 ext3 /swap 3Gb
You'll notice there's no "4" in this arrangement...leaving sda1 and sda2 in the same place (relative, on the drive) should allow Windows to continue to boot without major issue...

[thorper]

Based on your current configuratio, which is:

dev/sda (465.76Gb)
dev/sda1 ntfs Label-Service002 16.67Gb
dev/sda2 ntfs Label-Vista 449Gb Boot

I would suggest, using SystemRescueCD, that you leave sda1 alone, this looks like your Windows recovery partition which you will need if your Windows system crashes and needs to be reinstalled. sda2 could be resized to something like 30gb, only you will know how much space you will need to Windows use. The actual operating system uses a lot less than 10gb. The remain space can be partitioned as per pags suggestion. You might want to consider whether you want your data to be stored on an NTFS partition so it is accessible from both Linux & Windows, in that case you need to either create a separate partition for this or use a larger Windows partition. I hope that isn't too confusing.

Before performing any operations backup any data on your machine to a flash drive, remove an unwanted files & software and check if you need to do a defrag.

You can setup all your partitions and perform formatting on all new Linux partitions using the SystemRescueCD tool, so when you come to doing the actual install you can select "use existing partitions" option. I find this method safer, although I would suggest writing everything on paper so there is less chance of a mistake.

Remember you don't need to format sda1 or ads2, these are Windows partitions and will not be touched during the Linux install.

[arjaybe]

Thanks for advice about SystemRescueCE/ I did download it and burn it to disc and then booted off of it. I notice that is had GParted on it, so I ran that and according to GParted is what I currently have.
dev/sda (465.76Gb)
dev/sda1 ntfs Label-Service002 16.67Gb
dev/sda2 ntfs Label-Vista 449Gb Boot

To recap, this is what I want?
dev/sda (465.76Gb)
dev/sda1 ntfs Label-Service002 16.67Gb
dev/sda2 ntfs Label Vista 200Gb Boot
dev/sda3 no format Label-Common Partition, mount as /mnt/data 200Gb
dev/sda4 ext3 / (Root) 10Gb
dev/sda5 ext3 /home this is where PCLinuxOS is ?Gb
dev/sda6 ext3 /swap 3Gb

Out of curiosity, what does sda stand for?

Thanks for help
Richie

First, O-P, pags and thorper have made good suggestions.  Second, / is where you install PCLinuxOS, not /home.  Third, if you're using gparted you can format your /(ext3,) /home(ext3) and common(ntfs), partitions when you create them.  They will be selected and named /, /home and /mnt/data during installation of PCLinuxOS.  Refer to pags' post re: extended partitions for the sda designations of those partitions.  Fourth, the sizes of /, /home and /mnt/data will depend on whether or not you'll be doing things like remastering.  Thorper has suggested that / should be 25GB in that case, for instance.  It looks as if you will have about 50GB to divide between / and /home.  You might want to figure out if your Vista partition needs to be as big as 200GB, given that you'll probably be storing a lot of its data in the common partition.  Don't make it too small but don't waste space, either.

Are you still having fun?-)