Partitioning scheme for multi-booting winXP + Puppy + other?

[bostonvaulter]

My laptop hard drive is 74GB large.

What type of partitioning scheme would you guys reccomend? The hard drive is currently blank and I have yet to install OEM winXP on it.

I want to booth Puppy, WinXP, and have space for other *nixes like Ubuntu. I am also a bit confused about the whole primary, extended, and logical partitioning stuff.

Jason

edit: I think I might need a fairly large (~30) winXP partition because I will be doing some gaming. Maybe i could put the games on my data partition? Any good links would also be much appreciated.

So far I'm thinking:

30 GB windows XP [fat32]
2 GB windows swap [fat32?]
5 GB ubuntu/other [ext2]
~40 GB extended

• 1GB linux swap [linux swap]
  2 GB Puppy [ext2] (probably frugal)
  ~37 GB data [fat32]

do i need a boot partition?

[Flash]

The first partition on the hard drive will have to be reserved for XP, as the Windows installation program simply assumes that's where Windows is supposed to go. I would not make that partition a great deal larger than it needs to be to hold XP and the programs you intend to add to XP. Surely 10 GB will be plenty for this "system" partition. It can be either FAT32 or NTFS. I don't know which one is "better.". Puppy can read from and write to both. You can create this partition with Gparted in Puppy. I can't remember if Gparted can format a partition NTFS. If not, you can format it with the Windows installation disk when you install XP.

I would then make a separate partition for each user. I can't say how big these user partitions should be because I don't have any idea what the user(s) will be doing with the computer. (Hint: a 4.4 GB partition will just fit on a DVD; making backups easy.) These user partitions can be extended partitions. The important thing to keep in mind here is that Puppy can read from and write to both FAT32 and NTFS partitions. If you format the user partitions either FAT32 or NTFS, they can be shared by both XP and Puppy.

I don't see anything wrong with the Linux swap and ext2 partitions you propose, but then you don't say what you'll be doing with Puppy.

I assume that by boot partition you mean the first sector of the hard drive, where the boot information is stored. My recommendation is, first partition the hard drive to your liking and format the partitions, then install XP. The XP installer should automatically ask if you want to put XP on the first partition. (Called C:\ in Windows; hda1 in Linux.) The XP installer will automatically install the Windows boot program in the boot sector of the hard drive. The Windows boot program can only boot XP. At this point, don't do anything more than install XP and make sure it will boot.

Now, if you want to be able to boot both Linux and Windows from the hard drive, you will have to replace Windows' boot program with a boot program that can do more. The one Puppy uses is called GRUB (I think that's an acronym for GRand Unified Boot loader.) I've never installed Puppy to a hard drive so other forum members will know far more about this than I do, but I believe Puppy's installation program automatically asks if you want to install GRUB. If you say yes, Puppy will replace Windows' boot program with GRUB, which will then have to be configured to ask which OS, XP or Puppy, you want to use when you boot. Puppy may include a GRUB configuration wizard which makes that job easy. I don't know.

The idea is to not spend any time configuring XP or Puppy until after you have GRUB working the way you want it. Just install XP, get it to boot, then go on to install Puppy and GRUB. After you have GRUB configured out so it will boot either XP or Puppy, then go back and customize XP to your liking.

Don't fret too much over what sizes to make the partitions. Just leave some space unused on the hard drive. If you made separate system and user partitions, it is relatively easy to resize one without bothering the others. Puppy comes with several partitioning and formatting programs. Gparted worked fine for me, but my main partitioning program is Partition Magic 8.

[Bruce B]

Code: Select all

30 GB windows XP [fat32]
2 GB windows swap [fat32?]
5 GB ubuntu/other [ext2]
~40 GB extended

      1GB linux swap [linux swap]
      2 GB Puppy [ext2] (probably frugal)
      ~37 GB data [fat32]

Your proposal was very easy to read, well done.

As far as I've read XP will run on FAT32, the native filesystem is NTFS, but I'd like to install it on FAT32 if it would.

Note: Windows doesn't use a swap partition, that I'm aware of.

I'd do it in this sequence

1. MS-DOS fdisk to make one 20 GB FAT32 Primary at /dev/hda1

2. Test in see if XP will install on that partition, if so proceed as follows.

Use gparted or other Linux tools for the balance of your partitioning and formatting.

[Bruce B]

Gparted worked fine for me, but my main partitioning program is Partition Magic 8.

Myself included.

I use pq8 mostly for those resizing jobs, which I consider risky procedures.

I also have many rituals for success. Prayer is one: ".. please don't turn of the power now." Also, lighting candles, listing to the kind of music I hope please the powers that be, etc.

[headfound]

I've got an 80 gig disk, heres what i did.

Installed xp to blank drive (partitioned automatically as ntfs)

booted puppy, used gparted to resize ntfs partition to 10gigs. (this left 70 gigs unpartitioned)
used gparted to create 2gig ext2 primary partition for puppy.
used gparted to create 2gig ext2 primary partition for dynebolic (another linux media distro)
used gparted to create the final 66gigs as fat32 filespace.

Then installed puppy to hdb2 with the universal installer and installed grub (grub will NOT install to ntfs or fat32/16)
then rebooted with other linux livecd and instlled to hdb3, and added short boot entry to the puppy grub menu.lst

so my hard disk is now like this

hdb1 windows ntfs 10gig
hdb2 puppy ext2 2gig
hdb3 dynebolic ext2 2gig
hdb4 empty space fat32 66gig

[bostonvaulter]

Hi,

So I've installed Puppy and Windows XP. I needed to tweak my menu.lst a bit because nothing would boot at first

my setup is like this:
/dev/hda1 fat32 20GB J: windows main drive
/dev/hda2 fat32 2GB C: some dell driver files that were hard coded (was going to use for windows swap)
/dev/hda3 ext2 5GB Some puppy files, but am going to use for other linuxes
/dev/hda4 extended partition 39GB

• /dev/hda5 ext2 2GB Puppy frugal install as well as grub files
  /dev/hda6 linux-swap
  /dev/hda7 fat32 36GB D: storage for everything

unallocated 9GB

Unfortunately, I haven't followed Flash's advice too well and am now a bit attached to my win XP install. And the problem with that is the crazy drive lettering. Is there an easy way to switch the /dev/hda1 partition to the C: drive? maybe it had something to do with the map() commands i took out of grub?

Jason

[fobq]

Hi,
I have a 6 year-old notebook and want to use Puppy (frugal) and Ubuntu on it.
120 GB HDD
1.8 GHz CPU (PIV one core)
1 GB DDR2
256 MB Ati Radeon
Puppy will be used mainly. Could you recommend me a partition scheme?
Should I use common SWAP and /home partitions?
Thanks

[bigpup]

Linux ext2 format is not as stable as ext 3 or 4.

2GB is not much room for a frugal install and be able to add programs. Really depends on what you let be put on this partition.

ntfs is more stable as a format for Windows installs.

Ubuntu, mint, Open Suse, etc... want a partition formatted ext 3 or 4. Their installers will usually reformat as part of install. Watch for them automatically installing their own version of a boot loader.

5GB partition may seem like a lot of space, but not for Ubuntu, mint, Open Suse, etc...

Should I use common SWAP and /home partitions?

Swap- yes.
/home- not needed with Puppy.

[fobq]

What is the difference between to store programs installed in /home partition (or puppy savefile) or move them to a "data" partition and symlink them back to /home (savefile)? So which one is the better?

[nic007]

What is the difference between to store programs installed in /home partition (or puppy savefile) or move them to a "data" partition and symlink them back to /home (savefile)? So which one is the better?

Your mnt /home partition is a data partition and can be used for data storage. The save file may be situated in the mnt/home partition but actually forms part of the puppy operating system. Saving data to root will save directly to the save file. Saving to mnt/home will save to the partition and not to the save file.