Installing FC5, dual boot.

[pkroks]

I want to install FC5 as a second OS on my computer. I have the computer setup with two harddrives. Both are 160Gb SATA drives, but they only show up as 150Gb. I think I need a driver or something, not sure. Anyway the drives are setup as:

HDA0 - 2 partitions
- C: -> 130Gb
- E: -> 20Gb

HDA1 - 1 Partition
- F: -> 150Gb


Now Windows is on the 20Gb Partition, don't ask me why it's E and not C. But that's where it's installed. I want to install FC5. I have already tried installing it on it's own, i.e. no windows, just linux on 1 drive, the other drive empty. It didn't work.

What happened is, when you setup FC you go through the process of choosing applications etc. Well I did this, then it's supposed to format or something. It doesn't format the drives, and it doesn't install anything.

The only one time it started to format, it installed everything, on reboot it went to load GRUB and just didn't go any further. So I tried again, same thing, won't format and install. What should I do?

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Seeing 150GB of 160GB disk is normal, because that's the real capacity measured in 2-base system instead of ten-base for marketing.

You should be able to see the error messages in different terminals, press ctrl+alt+F2, F3, F4 or F5.

 

[pkroks]

Seeing 150GB of 160GB disk is normal, because that's the real capacity measured in 2-base system instead of ten-base for marketing.

You should be able to see the error messages in different terminals, press ctrl+alt+F2, F3, F4 or F5.

Well I have actually seen all 160Gb of my disc before. I can't remember what I did, installed something. But if what you are saying is true, then I probably didn't see it anyway.

And for the error message, is that whilst FC is installing, when it's supposed to be formatting and then installing packages but doesn't, then I press Ctrl+alt+f2, f3 etc?

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

You can press those key combinations during any part of the installation process.

If you're in text mode, F1 is the main screen, if in graphical mode, F7.

 

[pkroks]

I just tried now. I couldn't get to the bit where I choose the packages. It gave me this error:

Invalid partition table on /tmp/mapper/nvidia_fhehaibc -- wrong signature cddd

And then said I would have to format to install linux. So I didn't format. Should I? I mean, at the moment I don't know which drive it is referring to. I want windows on one drive and linux on the other...

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

Heres how i had FC4 GRUB set.
HD/PARTITION MOUNT FORMAT

HDA1 /winxp vfat <--20GB Windows XP
HDA2 /mp3s vfat <--20GB
HDB1 ext3 <--39GB FC4 install
HDB2 swap <--1024MB(double the amount of your memory) Swap Partition

Now if your going to copy this i believe you can use the NTFS filesystem now. When i ran this they didnt have the plugin for NTFS compatibility out so i had to run FAT32 on the windows partitions, but if i'm not mistaken that plugin comes with FC5.

About it not booting. You really should have the Linux install set with master pin, then FC5 will load and you can go and set up GRUB for dual booting after you install linux. Either that or you can install GRUB onto the windows partition which will overwrite the existing boot loader(if you ever want it back you can use a command in system recovery to put it back).

Installing linux on its own isn't going to work. You have to set up the mounts so you can see your windows partitions in linux. If your new to linux a mount is simply a shortcut. Like above "/winxp" simply places a shortcut named "/winxp" in the filesystem of linux.

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

Thats the linux partition. From what it seems like your FC5 CD images could of burned wrong. Does FC5 come with image tests at the start of the install like FC4 did? Run those if so. What program did you use to burn? I always use Nero, buffer underrun is a necessity.

It's like if you've ever burnt a audio CD and you hear little skips in the songs. Imagine that except with a CD image.

 

[pkroks]

Heres how i had FC4 GRUB set.
HD/PARTITION MOUNT FORMAT

HDA1 /winxp vfat <--20GB Windows XP
HDA2 /mp3s vfat <--20GB
HDB1 ext3 <--39GB FC4 install
HDB2 swap <--1024MB(double the amount of your memory) Swap Partition

Now if your going to copy this i believe you can use the NTFS filesystem now. When i ran this they didnt have the plugin for NTFS compatibility out so i had to run FAT32 on the windows partitions, but if i'm not mistaken that plugin comes with FC5.

About it not booting. You really should have the Linux install set with master pin, then FC5 will load and you can go and set up GRUB for dual booting after you install linux. Either that or you can install GRUB onto the windows partition which will overwrite the existing boot loader(if you ever want it back you can use a command in system recovery to put it back).

Installing linux on its own isn't going to work. You have to set up the mounts so you can see your windows partitions in linux. If your new to linux a mount is simply a shortcut. Like above "/winxp" simply places a shortcut named "/winxp" in the filesystem of linux.

So you suggest what exactly? Sorry if I missed it.

 

[pkroks]

Thats the linux partition. From what it seems like your FC5 CD images could of burned wrong. Does FC5 come with image tests at the start of the install like FC4 did? Run those if so. What program did you use to burn? I always use Nero, buffer underrun is a necessity.

It's like if you've ever burnt a audio CD and you hear little skips in the songs. Imagine that except with a CD image.

The tests say my disc is fine and working perfectly, I can continue installing from it.

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

Haha, give me a minute man, i had like the whole explanation typed up and the power flashed.....

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

Ok so you set the HD you want to install FC5 as Primary Master. Which means it will read that drive first and use that bootloader. Make sure it is formatted.

Now you start the linux install, everything is simple until you get to the partitioning part. I believe you said you had 2 160s, so for example.
HDB1 /winxp NTFS <--your windows partition
HDB2 /stuff NTFS <--another partition...
HDB3 /morestuff NTFS <--yet another partition......
You would set your windows drive's partitions like this. Now, underneath this you will see 160GIG unpartitioned space or whatever. Now being as 160GIG is alot of space you may want to split it up maybe have like i had. I had all of my thousands of mp3s in a FAT32 partition. This way linux music player could read them and so could windows. Plus it makes it nice when reformatting and such so you dont have to delete your thousands of mp3s with your windows install.

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

Ok, so you may want to rethink your partitioning for reformats and stuff, my mp3 partition hasnt been formatting in over 5 years i believe.

Heres the basics to mounting and partitioning for dual booting.
If you have ANYTHING you want to be able to access with Windows and Linux both then you need to set it to a Windows partition. LINUX CAN READ WINDOWS BUT WINDOWS CANT READ LINUX, due to Bill Gates being the great person he is.....

Ok, so you have all your partitions set. Now the drive your setting FC5 on is HDA. Now you want to multiply your physical memory by 2 and take that many Megabytes and set it as a SWAP drive. I never really understood what the point in this was but people say it is neccessary.

So say you have 512mb RAM. You make a 1024MB SWAP partition.

Now, you set the install destination. FC5 i think should have maybe 30-40GIG due to the massive amount of plugins you get when updating. Anyways

On the partition screen your install destination should read
HDB? /root ext3

/root sets it as the FC5 destination i do believe.

The part i hated about doing all this is that you have to set the size in Bytes. Can be confusing

 

[pkroks]

Just read your second post above.

Here is what I think I will do. Format both drives. And then partition the first drive with 2 partitions. Have one with linux, say a 38Gb partition. Then a 2Gb swap partition. Then have a ntfs partition of 120Gb.

Then I'll partition the second drive so I have 20Gb for windows and all the apps that I will install, and another 140Gb for stuff like music and games etc.

So:
HDA1 - 48Gb - linux
HDA2 - 2Gb - swap
HDA3 - 120Gb - ntfs
HDB1 - 20Gb - ntfs - windows xp
HDB2 - 140Gb - ntfs - stuff

That alright?
I should install windows first. Right?

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

Yea install Windows first, otherwise you have to do mounts by commandline. While your installing windows you can go ahead and format the 2 storage drives to NTFS just leave a little over 30GIG left over.So you'll have:
HDA1 /winxp NTFS 20GIG with windows
HDA2 /storage NTFS 130GIG storage
HDB1 /storage2 NTFS 120GIG storage
HDB2 /root EXT3 30GIG FC5
HDB3 SWAP Your memory x2 SWAP

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

By the way is this your first linux install?

 

[pkroks]

K. So I'm just going to copy some files I need. Then I'm gonna do this. hopefully it will all be working in 2-3hours. If not, I'll post here. Again. Thanks

 

[pkroks]

No. I have used Ubuntu before. But that was so simple, I didn't really have to make my own partitions and such.

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

Well dont count on USB devices like web cameras to work and better hope your video card has linux drivers. Need help with cedega i can help you, play any games with linux client like Neverwinter Nights i can most likely help you. I screwed with FC4 for like a year and i just finally said it wasnt worth the hassel. Can be quite hard to set up 5.1 surround sound manually

 

[pkroks]

Well I did the windows setup. First I made both disks raw. i.e. went into recovery console, used command mkdiskraw 1 for harddrive 2 and mkdiskraw 0 for hdd 1.

Then I went and did the windows partitions and all that like I said. I made the 20gb partition, put windows xp on there. booted up and the other partitions were there. So I went and restarted and loaded the FC5 disk.

Started the setup. First the drives were being pretty crappy and they kept putting partitions on the wrong drive. Eventually I managed to set the partitions how I wanted. Then went on, chose the packages I wanted. Clicked next. And got error messages. Again...

So I took pictures of them, with a crappy camera of mine. The nice one is locked in the safe and parents only got the keys. Anyway, after that I restarted and windows wouldn't work. It got to the loading windows page, but then a BSOD flashed on and the computer restarted. Did this everytime I tried to load windows, even tried safe mode and all that. Nothing, so I am installing windows again, on a 20gb partition.

The pictures I took are below. These are when I press ctrl+alt+F3, F4, F5, F6
Sorry for the bad quality.

Any ideas?

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

Man you have to be doing something wrong. Try this. Take out the HD your going to install linux on. Then install windows do it in a FAT32 Filesystem, both of them. So you'll have your 20GB Windows and your 130GB storage in FAT32 filesystem.

Now once windows is installed shutdown your computer. Set the other HD as master and Windows as slave and continue to install linux.

This is what i think your problem is i dont know what the program to partition FC5 uses though so im not sure how to explain it. Most likely Disk Druid right?

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

You click "partition manually with disk druid" or something similar.

No matter what it is this is what you need to do. I'll explain it in detail this time.

After you do that you will have the 20gig windows partition and the 130gig showing and under it 150gig of unpartitioned space.

Now, you want to create a new partition 30gig in size in ext3 filesystem. The /mnt should be "/"

Next, you make the swap partition twice the size of your physical RAM in SWAP filesystem with no /mnt at all.

Last partition, pretty much whatever is left over from the unpartitioned space will be this partition. You want to be it "vfat" filesystem with a /mnt of your choice like /storage, /mp3s, /music, whatever you want.

Now, you go into the properties of your 20gig windows partition, in there all you do is set the /mnt to "/winxp" make sure "leave unchanged" is selected or it will format that partition.

Next, you have the other storage partition you made while installing windows at 130gig. It should already be "vfat" filesystem so you just add the /mnt to whatever you want it to be like the other storage partition.

Now make sure this is all right because its going to create all these at once(much better than the windows partitioner huh?), nothing is final until you go past that screen.

After that i believe theres options for network settings and such, also there is one i think where you select which /mnt (mounts in linux are like the labels "C:" "D:") to install the mbr to. You want it to be on "/" which is the main directory. Instead of C: you have / and the other mounts are put into that directory.

I think your problem was before you didnt set a drive to "/" so the install was trying to install to nowhere pretty much....

But with that you should make it through the install fine.

 

[pkroks]

This is exactly what I did.

I went into the windows setup. I had two drives showing. A and B. (Both SATA). In the windows partitioner, I pressed C and created the windows partition, 20Gb. Then I went and created another 130Gb partition on the same drive (A).

From there I went and made the final 110Gb partition on the second drive B. After I had created the partitions it looked something like this.

HDA

C: 20Gb Raw
D: 130Gb Raw

HDB
E: 110Gb Raw
Unpartitioned Space 45Gb.

So then I went ahead and installed windows on drive C: (the 20Gb partition on HDA). After install finished I went into windows. Went Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc > checked the partitions and what was available. It showed up exactly as was supposed to.

Disk 0 (this is A)
C: 20Gb (ntfs System) ........ D: 130Gb (RAW)

Disk 1 (this is B)
E: 110Gb (RAW) ..... Unallocated space 40Gb

then it also had my DVDRW drive and floppy drive.

So I did quick formats of the 2 storage partitions, making them both ntfs. So I could use them. After the quick formats completed I put in the FC5 disk and restarted.

Loaded the menu item where you press enter. Did that. Came up with do you want to check the disk for errors or whatever. I went skip, because I have done this before about 2 or 3 times and each time the check says the disk is fine.

From there it loads Anaconda. I choose language and location. Then I get to the disk partitioner. It has options to remove linux partitions and windows partitions etc. I chose to manually configure my partitions.

In there the disks showed up like this.

Disk 1
20Gb - ntfs - sectors xxx-xxx
130Gb - (didn't say any format, just said free so I was like wtf)
Disk 2
150Gb - (again free wtf?)

So I went ahead with my original plan. I was going to make a 38Gb partition for mount point " / " and then file system ext3. at first it kept making this partition out of the 130Gb free space. So I specified sectors from the second disk. I worked it out perfectly, 5098 sectors was 38Gb or something like that. And like 521 sectors were for 2Gb. So I made these partitions. The 2Gb being SWAP (I have 1Gb ram so therefore I made 2Gb as Swap as you said. No mount point, it greys it out anyway). I clicked next. It came up with information about Grub loader and which partition to boot from. In the list were:

Disk 1 (A)
Disk 2 (B) mount point " / "

I selected B as the default. I then also selected that it install GRUB loader onto B.

I then went on. Chose the appz and packages I wanted installed. Clicked next. It checked dependancies and continued. It came up with some message about how it was going to format and then install if I wanted to continue. So I chose next. From there it went on. The screen with progress bar and such came up. But nothing happened. I left it for approximately an hour. Came back and still no progress. So I did ctrl+alt+F2 and saw the text and errors. Took a pic with my camera, wasn't going to write it all down with a pen and paper. Then I went ctrl+alt+F3. same thing all the way back to the progress bar (up to F7).

I decided, 1 hour and no progress and some errors. This isn't going to work. Pushed reset and the computer restarted. Got to the loading windows sign with the sliding bar, flashed to a BSOD for about a split second and restarted, all the way back past where you press del to enter the bios, and did the same thing. I was like wtf.

So I went back into a windows install. The harddrives were listed as

Disk 1
Unknown partition (or something like that)
Disk 2
Unallocated space

I was like wtf. Deleted both partitions and reinstalled windows on another 20Gb partition. And here I am.

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

Yea, i made an asumption that NTFS support was out because there was alot of talk about it like a year ago. But it isn't. So you have to make all those drives your making NTFS FAT32 instead. Thats the problem, your trying to mount what its reading as unpartitioned space.

 

[WinDoWsMoNoPoLy]

I feel bad now, i've wasted hours of your time thinking linux had NTFS support.....

 

[pkroks]

I see. lol

So what I do is I create the partitions like this:

Disk A
20Gb - FAT32 windows
130Gb - FAT32

Disk B
110Gb - FAT32
38Gb - EXT3 - mnt point /
2Gb - SWAP


After I have done that the install should work? Then once installed I can convert the FAT32 drives to ntfs in cmd.exe under windows. So that I can have files over 3Gb or 4Gb or whatever it is. ???