Installing Linux

Bah

Hey,

I need to instal a copy of Linux onto my system, but I made a bit of a mess with the partitioning when I installed windows - I've got a (roughly) 10GB IDE drive (split into C [6.3GB], D [3.41GB] and E [1.8GB]). I've also got a 160GB (although it only shows up as 149GB) SATA drives. So basically my question is:
1) How should I fix my IDE partitions - right now, I don't even know why i have 3 - I really only wanted two - one for the Windows OS files and another for the Linux files, with all programs and documents kept on the SATA drive. Any (reliable) way to maybe combine say the D and E partition so I'd have two (roughly equal) partitions, one for Linux (Fedora Core 3 if that makes any difference) and the other for windows?
2) How do I make all my files automatically save and install to my F drive (SATA drive) instead of first being saved to my D drive?
3) If I need (or if it'd just be easier/cleaner) to do a clean install, what backup software would you recommend?

Thanks in advance.

Khannie

Bah wrote:

Hey,

I need to instal a copy of Linux onto my system, but I made a bit of a mess with the partitioning when I installed windows - I've got a (roughly) 10GB IDE drive (split into C [6.3GB], D [3.41GB] and E [1.8GB]). I've also got a 160GB (although it only shows up as 149GB) SATA drives. So basically my question is:
1) How should I fix my IDE partitions - right now, I don't even know why i have 3 - I really only wanted two - one for the Windows OS files and another for the Linux files, with all programs and documents kept on the SATA drive. Any (reliable) way to maybe combine say the D and E partition so I'd have two (roughly equal) partitions, one for Linux (Fedora Core 3 if that makes any difference) and the other for windows?

Partition magic for windows sounds like it would sort you out.

You need to install Fedora Core 3 on a primary partition (see the comp->OS->unix forum). Not sure if the same applies to FC2 or other linux distro's.

Bah wrote:

2) How do I make all my files automatically save and install to my F drive (SATA drive) instead of first being saved to my D drive?

Sorry....you've lost me there.

Bah wrote:

3) If I need (or if it'd just be easier/cleaner) to do a clean install, what backup software would you recommend?

Ghost is an excellent backup tool. There are others, but I'm not familiar with them.

Bah wrote:

Thanks in advance.

Welcome

Bah

Khannie wrote:

Sorry....you've lost me there.

It's just that right now, all my downloads/documents/everything is automaticaly saved to my D partition - the one with Windows installed on it. But the problem is, the partition fills up really fast - it's on a matter of selecting a different drive when I'm saving/downloading, but it does get a bit annoying after awhile. Any way to make my SATA drive my "primary" drive when saving things?

pickarooney

The save options are all dependent on the settings of the programs, e.g in Firefox you set it in Tools, Options, Downloads.
Most linux distros come with partitioning software and the majority of them will install to non-primary partitions. It's very easy, for example, to partition your drives and install Mandrake while keeping Windows where it is. (I've not enough experience with other distros to say for sure about them.)
If you want to use, say, drive E: for linux, you can choose to format that drive as such during installation of linux. If you backup the data currently on you can also wipe that and combine it with E: during installation.
Just remember that if you want to have a partition that's common to both (somewhere you store photos, mp3s etc), you should consider formatting that partition in FAT32, as it's the only file system which is currently completely read/writable with both systems.

Now, that 10GB drive is cutting it a bit fine for installing two OSes, so you may want to cut a partition off the 160GB drive for the linux OS.
I'm not 100% on this next bit, so you might want to ask someone else, but in theory if you want to put linux on the big disk, keep windows on the small disk and combine and E: you should be able to do it by
1) backing up the data on and E:
2) when linux is installed and booted, unmount the and E: drives and format them in FAT32, or wipe them leave them unformatted
3) rebooting to Windows and converting the fat32/unformatted partitoin to one NTFS partition.
If you have or don't mind buying Partition Magic, it's a much more straightforward solution for this last bit.

HTH

jor el

Have a look on microsoft.com for TweakUI, which will let you configure some hidden system settings including changing the location of special folders. You can change the default My Documenst, Pictures, etc folders with this.

Other than that, you just need to select which drive you install programs to and save files on yourself.

Khannie

Bah wrote:

It's just that right now, all my downloads/documents/everything is automaticaly saved to my D partition - the one with Windows installed on it. But the problem is, the partition fills up really fast - it's on a matter of selecting a different drive when I'm saving/downloading, but it does get a bit annoying after awhile. Any way to make my SATA drive my "primary" drive when saving things?

Aha! First, what pickarooney said, also though: grab yourself a copy of TweakUI from the microsoft website. It allows you to change the default path to (for example) the desktop, my documents, etc.

HTH.