I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do this? Can I have some level of confidence that it will not mess things up so that I cannot boot into Windows? if it screws up and makes Windows unbootable that would be a Very Bad Thing.
Thanks! -larry
On 01/30/2012 03:14 PM, Larry Martell wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do this? Can I have some level of confidence that it will not mess things up so that I cannot boot into Windows? if it screws up and makes Windows unbootable that would be a Very Bad Thing.
Thanks! -larry
First make backup of the MBR (some Linux software save them elsewhere on the disk.)
I used CentOS 6.2 DVD to partition Windows 7 partitons, amongst all others. But take notice that regular CentOS DVD/LiveDVD has no ntfs support so you will not be able to format them with NTFS. You can however create them as FAT32 and re-format them from windows.
CentOS 6.2 DVD can also align partitions for new 4k sector HDD's
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:07 AM, Ljubomir Ljubojevic office@plnet.rs wrote:
On 01/30/2012 03:14 PM, Larry Martell wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do this? Can I have some level of confidence that it will not mess things up so that I cannot boot into Windows? if it screws up and makes Windows unbootable that would be a Very Bad Thing.
Thanks! -larry
First make backup of the MBR (some Linux software save them elsewhere on the disk.)
OK, I'll research how to do that and give it a shot.
I used CentOS 6.2 DVD to partition Windows 7 partitons, amongst all others. But take notice that regular CentOS DVD/LiveDVD has no ntfs support so you will not be able to format them with NTFS. You can however create them as FAT32 and re-format them from windows.
CentOS 6.2 DVD can also align partitions for new 4k sector HDD's
Not sure that either of these things will be an issue to me.
-larry
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:14 AM, Larry Martell larry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do this? Can I have some level of confidence that it will not mess things up so that I cannot boot into Windows? if it screws up and makes Windows unbootable that would be a Very Bad Thing.
If you have space somewhere to save a backup, you can boot a clonezilla-live CD and do a disk->image copy that will save your current partitioning and content. It can connect to the image storage via nfs, windows file sharing, or ssh, and it knows enough about most filesystems including ntfs to only save the used portions of the partitions.
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:14 AM, Larry Martell larry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do
<snip>
Two things: on the one hand, you're familiar with the std. instructions to use Windows' defragger before you resize the partitions, correct?
On the other... if you don't have admin rights, are you sure you, personally, won't get into trouble (I'm assuming this is a work machine) for doing this, and, for that matter, that when desktop support checks conformance to organization policy, that they won't ghost it back to what it was?
mark, wondering if he's still graylisted
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:14 AM, Larry Martelllarry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do
<snip>
Maybe a little different answer than you're looking for....
But why not install VMware Workstation (free)?
Unless there's some specific reason,
now a days, me personally, I wouldn't do it any other way.
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:27 AM, Ken godee ken@perfect-image.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:14 AM, Larry Martelllarry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do
<snip>
Maybe a little different answer than you're looking for....
But why not install VMware Workstation (free)?
Unless there's some specific reason,
now a days, me personally, I wouldn't do it any other way.
That is not what my client has asked me to do. They want a dual boot Windows/CentOS box.
Maybe a little different answer than you're looking for....
But why not install VMware Workstation (free)?
Unless there's some specific reason,
now a days, me personally, I wouldn't do it any other way.
That is not what my client has asked me to do. They want a dual boot Windows/CentOS box.
sometimes clients don't know what is best for them. either they aren't aware of VMs or perhaps have a fear of the unknown. virtual machines work great for all but the most intensive work (hardware accelerated CUDA functions, multi-dimentional matrix calculations and games requiring DirectX10+ hardware acceleration).
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:23 AM, Jonathan Nilsson jnilsson@uci.edu wrote:
Maybe a little different answer than you're looking for....
But why not install VMware Workstation (free)?
Unless there's some specific reason,
now a days, me personally, I wouldn't do it any other way.
That is not what my client has asked me to do. They want a dual boot Windows/CentOS box.
sometimes clients don't know what is best for them. either they aren't aware of VMs or perhaps have a fear of the unknown. virtual machines work great for all but the most intensive work (hardware accelerated CUDA functions, multi-dimentional matrix calculations and games requiring DirectX10+ hardware acceleration).
Yeah, I know, but they (and I) want my environment to match their production deployment, and that will not be using a VM.
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 12:31 PM, Larry Martell larry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
Yeah, I know, but they (and I) want my environment to match their production deployment, and that will not be using a VM.
If you can tell the difference from inside the environment, you did something wrong.
Yeah, I know, but they (and I) want my environment to match their production deployment, and that will not be using a VM.
do they all run with dual-booting Windows/CentOS systems? is their environment filled with laptops running CentOS?
If you can tell the difference from inside the environment, you did
something wrong.
well, a few differences: if you run a VM you won't be needing to load any custom hardware drivers (especially wifi, just use bridged/shared networking). also you won't get any of the hardware keys on the laptop to work within the virtual machine. and i'm not sure what happens if you close the laptop - windows may not be able to hibernate/suspend if the VM is running.
but still, i'd advocate going the virtual machine route.
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Jonathan Nilsson jnilsson@uci.edu wrote:
Yeah, I know, but they (and I) want my environment to match their production deployment, and that will not be using a VM.
do they all run with dual-booting Windows/CentOS systems? is their environment filled with laptops running CentOS?
This is a new system, but yes, it will be deployed on laptops running CentOS.
If you can tell the difference from inside the environment, you did
something wrong.
well, a few differences: if you run a VM you won't be needing to load any custom hardware drivers (especially wifi, just use bridged/shared networking). also you won't get any of the hardware keys on the laptop to work within the virtual machine. and i'm not sure what happens if you close the laptop - windows may not be able to hibernate/suspend if the VM is running.
but still, i'd advocate going the virtual machine route.
I didn't come here to debate VM's. I was just looking for someone to say "Yeah, I used the CentOS partitioning it and it worked like a charm" or "I used it and it was a disaster."
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 1:19 PM, Larry Martell larry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
I didn't come here to debate VM's. I was just looking for someone to say "Yeah, I used the CentOS partitioning it and it worked like a charm" or "I used it and it was a disaster."
Can't help there - I did mine long ago, probably with a Knoppix or ubuntu boot disk and it's XP, not win7 anyway... But it was probably the same tool that Centos includes now.
do they all run with dual-booting Windows/CentOS systems? is their environment filled with laptops running CentOS?
This is a new system, but yes, it will be deployed on laptops running CentOS.
ah, ok. so you need to get centos working on the bare-metal hardware of the laptop. VMs will not help you there ;)
I didn't come here to debate VM's. I was just looking for someone to
say "Yeah, I used the CentOS partitioning it and it worked like a charm" or "I used it and it was a disaster."
sorry if i sounded cross; i am not trying to be argumentative. it's just that from my experience dual-booting has not been worth the effort unless it is truly needed for the hardware performance, and running CentOS on a laptop (depending on the model) may prove challenging to get all the hardware to work.
as for partitioning, i have not had success using any linux installer to resize an existing Windows partition. supposedly gparted on a livecd can do this (though it has not worked for me when i tried it, possibly because i didn't defrag windows first): http://www.micahcarrick.com/resize-ntfs-partition.html
the most reliable method for us has been to pre-partition the drive into at least 2 partitions, then install windows into the first partition, then install centos (letting it use the free space to auto-create partitions for /boot and LVM, and correctly set up grub in the MBR.)
Jonathan Nilsson wrote:
Larry wrote:
<snip>
I didn't come here to debate VM's. I was just looking for someone to
say "Yeah, I used the CentOS partitioning it and it worked like a charm" or "I used it and it was a disaster."
sorry if i sounded cross; i am not trying to be argumentative. it's just that from my experience dual-booting has not been worth the effort unless it is truly needed for the hardware performance, and running CentOS on a laptop (depending on the model) may prove challenging to get all the hardware to work.
as for partitioning, i have not had success using any linux installer to resize an existing Windows partition. supposedly gparted on a livecd can
<snip> I've done it a few times; most recently, with my netbook (ok, it's got the Ubuntu netbook remix on it, but I'm getting annoyed enough to maybe put CentOS on - I like stability), and have never had a problem.
As I said, do the defrag, then yes, you *can* use Linux's fdisk, it's perfectly fine with a DOS MBR, and won't break anything.
mark
On 01/30/2012 08:45 PM, Jonathan Nilsson wrote:
as for partitioning, i have not had success using any linux installer to resize an existing Windows partition. supposedly gparted on a livecd can do this (though it has not worked for me when i tried it, possibly because i didn't defrag windows first): http://www.micahcarrick.com/resize-ntfs-partition.html
the most reliable method for us has been to pre-partition the drive into at least 2 partitions, then install windows into the first partition, then install centos (letting it use the free space to auto-create partitions for /boot and LVM, and correctly set up grub in the MBR.)
You can Ghost the partition with the software that allows to reduce the partition when getting it back, so you ghost, delete and rectreate the partitions, and get the ghosted partition back in smaller space.
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 3:22 PM, Ljubomir Ljubojevic office@plnet.rs wrote:
You can Ghost the partition with the software that allows to reduce the partition when getting it back, so you ghost, delete and rectreate the partitions, and get the ghosted partition back in smaller space.
Yes, that works with Ghost, if you have space for the image copy. Are there any free tools that know how to shrink an NTFS image on the fly while copying? Clonezilla can resize larger, but it isn't even very good at that, and it can't go smaller.
On 01/30/2012 10:35 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 3:22 PM, Ljubomir Ljubojevicoffice@plnet.rs wrote:
You can Ghost the partition with the software that allows to reduce the partition when getting it back, so you ghost, delete and rectreate the partitions, and get the ghosted partition back in smaller space.
Yes, that works with Ghost, if you have space for the image copy. Are there any free tools that know how to shrink an NTFS image on the fly while copying? Clonezilla can resize larger, but it isn't even very good at that, and it can't go smaller.
DriveXML can not (freeware?), ImageDrive should be able. Can't say for any open source.
On 01/30/12 1:22 PM, Ljubomir Ljubojevic wrote:
You can Ghost the partition with the software that allows to reduce the partition when getting it back, so you ghost, delete and rectreate the partitions, and get the ghosted partition back in smaller space.
I usually use Acronis TrueImage ($$) to do this for Windows NTFS volumes. make a partition image on a seperate device, then delete and repartition the disk into whatever you want, then restore that partition image to the resized volume. note that in TrueImage (and in Ghost), a 'partition image' is more like a exfs 'dump', its really a file by file backup, done at the NTFS equivalent of an inode level.
I strongly dislike and distrust any tool that attempts to do in-place partition resizing, the results are rarely optimal and if anything goes wrong, you lose the whole mess. With the image, repartition, restore technique, every step is restartable and you have a full backup.
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Jonathan Nilsson jnilsson@uci.edu wrote:
do they all run with dual-booting Windows/CentOS systems? is their environment filled with laptops running CentOS?
This is a new system, but yes, it will be deployed on laptops running CentOS.
ah, ok. so you need to get centos working on the bare-metal hardware of the laptop. VMs will not help you there ;)
I didn't come here to debate VM's. I was just looking for someone to
say "Yeah, I used the CentOS partitioning it and it worked like a charm" or "I used it and it was a disaster."
sorry if i sounded cross; i am not trying to be argumentative.
No problem. The discussion was just veering away from what I was trying get out of it.
it's just that from my experience dual-booting has not been worth the effort unless it is truly needed for the hardware performance, and running CentOS on a laptop (depending on the model) may prove challenging to get all the hardware to work.
as for partitioning, i have not had success using any linux installer to resize an existing Windows partition. supposedly gparted on a livecd can do this (though it has not worked for me when i tried it, possibly because i didn't defrag windows first): http://www.micahcarrick.com/resize-ntfs-partition.html
the most reliable method for us has been to pre-partition the drive into at least 2 partitions, then install windows into the first partition, then install centos (letting it use the free space to auto-create partitions for /boot and LVM, and correctly set up grub in the MBR.)
I can't install Windows - I don't have the disks, and this is a corporate install with all sorts of their own stuff.
So my plan is to defrag as Mark suggested, use clonezilla as Les suggested, and back up the MBR as Ljubomir suggested, then give it go with the CentOS partitioning tool. Thanks much everyone for the help! I'll let you know how it goes.
-larry
On 01/30/2012 08:19 PM, Larry Martell wrote:
do they all run with dual-booting Windows/CentOS systems? is their
environment filled with laptops running CentOS?
This is a new system, but yes, it will be deployed on laptops running CentOS.
My suggestion, and I am assuming you are not very proficient with Linux partition/backup tools . So, download Hiren's Boot, go to Windows XP environment and create "ghost" image of the entire disk. You should be able to do it with DriveXML app. Reserve solution is DOS mode and running some other backup app. Make sure you also backup MBR.
Make sure created backup is safe on some external storage.
Some backup apps are outdated for W7 NTFS, but Hiren's will warn you if you choose such app.
P.S. Hiren's CD also has Linux mode, with Parted and few backup apps, for linux.
If you need to resize NTFS partition, do it from Windows/DOS app from Hiren's Boot. Linux without NTFS support will not be ableto do it, and even with support I would avoid such solution. That same App can create free space you need for CentOS and boot partition. Linux boot partition must be one of the primary partitions (first 3 if I recall correctly), so create a boot partition (best size is > 500 Mb, just to be on the safe side and have root for the future. absolute minimum is 200MB in my opinion). Then you can create Extended partitons. Even Win7 now uses separate ~100MB sized partition and other partitions can be Extended ones.
P.S. I also like to create Windows swap partition and move sap file there, for smaller fragmentation of the file system.
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 12:46 PM, Ljubomir Ljubojevic office@plnet.rs wrote:
On 01/30/2012 08:19 PM, Larry Martell wrote:
do they all run with dual-booting Windows/CentOS systems? is their
environment filled with laptops running CentOS?
This is a new system, but yes, it will be deployed on laptops running CentOS.
My suggestion, and I am assuming you are not very proficient with Linux partition/backup tools .
The last time I did that was in 2003 - I was installing Mandrake on an XP system that I had admin on, and I used Partition Magic to partition the disk. Since then I've been working on Mac's, Solaris, and RHEL systems that someone else was administrating.
So, download Hiren's Boot, go to Windows XP environment and create "ghost" image of the entire disk. You should be able to do it with DriveXML app. Reserve solution is DOS mode and running some other backup app. Make sure you also backup MBR.
Make sure created backup is safe on some external storage.
Some backup apps are outdated for W7 NTFS, but Hiren's will warn you if you choose such app.
P.S. Hiren's CD also has Linux mode, with Parted and few backup apps, for linux.
If you need to resize NTFS partition, do it from Windows/DOS app from Hiren's Boot. Linux without NTFS support will not be ableto do it, and even with support I would avoid such solution. That same App can create free space you need for CentOS and boot partition. Linux boot partition must be one of the primary partitions (first 3 if I recall correctly), so create a boot partition (best size is > 500 Mb, just to be on the safe side and have root for the future. absolute minimum is 200MB in my opinion). Then you can create Extended partitons. Even Win7 now uses separate ~100MB sized partition and other partitions can be Extended ones.
P.S. I also like to create Windows swap partition and move sap file there, for smaller fragmentation of the file system.
Thanks much for the pointers!
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:57 PM, Ken godee ken@perfect-image.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:14 AM, Larry Martelllarry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do
<snip>
Maybe a little different answer than you're looking for....
But why not install VMware Workstation (free)?
Unless there's some specific reason,
The OP does not have admin rights to the Windows OS. I presume he would need it to install any piece of software (I use Virtual Box).
-- Arun Khan
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:15 PM, Arun Khan knura9@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:57 PM, Ken godee ken@perfect-image.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:14 AM, Larry Martelllarry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do
<snip>
Maybe a little different answer than you're looking for....
But why not install VMware Workstation (free)?
Unless there's some specific reason,
The OP does not have admin rights to the Windows OS. I presume he would need it to install any piece of software (I use Virtual Box).
I can't even defrag the disk without admin rights :-(
I'm going to make one more push to get admin, and if not, just go ahead and install CentOS and see what happens.
Le mar 31 jan 2012 05:34:21 CET, Larry Martell a écrit:
... I can't even defrag the disk without admin rights :-(
I'm going to make one more push to get admin, and if not, just go ahead and install CentOS and see what happens.
You can check if there is enough available disk space without defragmenting, with ntfsresize : ntfsresize -i /dev/sda1 # or whatever is your ntfs partition ntfsresize -n --size <new size> /dev/sda1 These two commands only show/test what can be done, without changing anything on the disk.
If you feel ready for the change : fdisk -l /dev/sda # and keep a copy of the output ntfsresize --size <new size> /dev/sda1 # this time without -n fdisk /dev/sda Delete the old sda1 and recreate it with the same start and a size at least sufficient to hold the resized ntfs. Don't forget to change the type of the partition, and activate it. ntfsresize -fi /dev/sda1 If it reports any problem, undo what has been done with fdisk. Restart Windows and let it do its FS check.
This has worked for me, but as always : ymmv, be careful.
On Tuesday 31 January 2012 05:34:21 Larry Martell wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:15 PM, Arun Khan knura9@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:57 PM, Ken godee ken@perfect-image.com wrote:
Maybe a little different answer than you're looking for....
But why not install VMware Workstation (free)?
The OP does not have admin rights to the Windows OS. I presume he would need it to install any piece of software (I use Virtual Box).
I can't even defrag the disk without admin rights :-(
I'm going to make one more push to get admin, and if not, just go ahead and install CentOS and see what happens.
Beware that resizing a Windows partition which has not been defrag'ed is a Bad Idea, and works only if you are lucky enough that Windows didn't use the end- portion of the partition. Maybe it will work on a freshly installed and not- ever-seriously-used Windows, but it's a gamble.
If it doesn't work, you're looking at data loss and corruption of the ntfs partition (fixing of the latter may require you to have admin privileges...).
If your Windows admin doesn't want to provide you with the privileges, why don't you ask him to resize the partition for you?
HTH, :-) Marko
On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 7:11 AM, Marko Vojinovic vvmarko@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday 31 January 2012 05:34:21 Larry Martell wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:15 PM, Arun Khan knura9@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:57 PM, Ken godee ken@perfect-image.com wrote:
Maybe a little different answer than you're looking for....
But why not install VMware Workstation (free)?
The OP does not have admin rights to the Windows OS. I presume he would need it to install any piece of software (I use Virtual Box).
I can't even defrag the disk without admin rights :-(
I'm going to make one more push to get admin, and if not, just go ahead and install CentOS and see what happens.
Beware that resizing a Windows partition which has not been defrag'ed is a Bad Idea, and works only if you are lucky enough that Windows didn't use the end- portion of the partition. Maybe it will work on a freshly installed and not- ever-seriously-used Windows, but it's a gamble.
I've found that there is an automated defrag scheduled for 1:45am on Wednesdays. I probably won't be up then, but perhaps nothing will move around between then and the morning.
If it doesn't work, you're looking at data loss and corruption of the ntfs partition (fixing of the latter may require you to have admin privileges...).
If your Windows admin doesn't want to provide you with the privileges, why don't you ask him to resize the partition for you?
Yeah, I'm in a remote location (at home) and it's a huge company with centralized admin services and I'm working for a small division, but perhaps I can get them to remote in and do it. They're just not very responsive, so it's a slow process.
On 01/31/2012 03:21 PM, Larry Martell wrote:
I've found that there is an automated defrag scheduled for 1:45am on Wednesdays. I probably won't be up then, but perhaps nothing will move around between then and the morning.
Just leave laptop in power and on during the night, or, if you have access to the BIOS, change the time in BIOS to 01:35am, and disable internet access to the laptop, so it defrags as soon as it is booted.
On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 7:21 AM, Larry Martell larry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 7:11 AM, Marko Vojinovic vvmarko@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday 31 January 2012 05:34:21 Larry Martell wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:15 PM, Arun Khan knura9@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:57 PM, Ken godee ken@perfect-image.com wrote:
Maybe a little different answer than you're looking for....
But why not install VMware Workstation (free)?
The OP does not have admin rights to the Windows OS. I presume he would need it to install any piece of software (I use Virtual Box).
I can't even defrag the disk without admin rights :-(
I'm going to make one more push to get admin, and if not, just go ahead and install CentOS and see what happens.
Beware that resizing a Windows partition which has not been defrag'ed is a Bad Idea, and works only if you are lucky enough that Windows didn't use the end- portion of the partition. Maybe it will work on a freshly installed and not- ever-seriously-used Windows, but it's a gamble.
I've found that there is an automated defrag scheduled for 1:45am on Wednesdays. I probably won't be up then, but perhaps nothing will move around between then and the morning.
If it doesn't work, you're looking at data loss and corruption of the ntfs partition (fixing of the latter may require you to have admin privileges...).
If your Windows admin doesn't want to provide you with the privileges, why don't you ask him to resize the partition for you?
Yeah, I'm in a remote location (at home) and it's a huge company with centralized admin services and I'm working for a small division, but perhaps I can get them to remote in and do it. They're just not very responsive, so it's a slow process.
I was able to get temporary admin rights, and then I successfully installed CentOS and can also boot into Windows. Thanks everyone for all the info and advise. On to bigger and better things!
-larry
From: Marko Vojinovic vvmarko@gmail.com
On Tuesday 31 January 2012 05:34:21 Larry Martell wrote:
I can't even defrag the disk without admin rights :-( I'm going to make one more push to get admin, and if not, just go ahead and install CentOS and see what happens.
Beware that resizing a Windows partition which has not been defrag'ed is a Bad Idea, and works only if you are lucky enough that Windows didn't use the end-portion of the partition. Maybe it will work on a freshly installed and not-ever-seriously-used Windows, but it's a gamble.
I do not think that Windows basic defragging tool still moves all files bits to the begining of the partition... It believe it just puts the bits of the same file in a sequential order (maybe also put directories entries at the beginning?) and that's it. Other defrag utilities might do it though. I would check with a "disk mapper" that displays files location on a disk graphically (I think there is maybe one in the sysinternal tools)...
JD
Le mar 31 jan 2012 07:14:25 CET, John Doe a écrit:
From: Marko Vojinovic vvmarko@gmail.com
On Tuesday 31 January 2012 05:34:21 Larry Martell wrote:
I can't even defrag the disk without admin rights :-( I'm going to make one more push to get admin, and if not, just go ahead and install CentOS and see what happens.
Beware that resizing a Windows partition which has not been defrag'ed is a Bad Idea, and works only if you are lucky enough that Windows didn't use the end-portion of the partition. Maybe it will work on a freshly installed and not-ever-seriously-used Windows, but it's a gamble.
I do not think that Windows basic defragging tool still moves all files bits to the begining of the partition... It believe it just puts the bits of the same file in a sequential order (maybe also put directories entries at the beginning?) and that's it. Other defrag utilities might do it though. I would check with a "disk mapper" that displays files location on a disk graphically (I think there is maybe one in the sysinternal tools)...
Windows defrag doesn't "compact" the FileSystem ; ntfsresize does if necessary.
Larry should have a look at "man ntfsresize" : http://linux.die.net/man/8/ntfsresize
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:41 AM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:14 AM, Larry Martell larry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do
<snip>
Two things: on the one hand, you're familiar with the std. instructions to use Windows' defragger before you resize the partitions, correct?
No, I'm really not familiar with anything in Windows. I've managed to have a 30 year career in software development without ever spending very much time on Windows.
On the other... if you don't have admin rights, are you sure you, personally, won't get into trouble (I'm assuming this is a work machine) for doing this, and, for that matter, that when desktop support checks conformance to organization policy, that they won't ghost it back to what it was?
This machine was given to me by a client, and I was asked to set up the dual boot with CentOS. I asked for admin rights under Windows, but I was told it was against corporate policy to grant them to me. I told them I was hesitant to try this without first partitioning the disk under Windows, as I did not want to render it unbootable. They said they didn't care if that happened, and if it did, just send it back to them and they'd reinstall Windows (don't ya just love that corporate mentality ;-) But that will be a pain, and without the machine I cannot VPN into their network and get my email and do other things I need to do.
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:37 AM, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:14 AM, Larry Martell larry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do this? Can I have some level of confidence that it will not mess things up so that I cannot boot into Windows? if it screws up and makes Windows unbootable that would be a Very Bad Thing.
If you have space somewhere to save a backup, you can boot a clonezilla-live CD and do a disk->image copy that will save your current partitioning and content. It can connect to the image storage via nfs, windows file sharing, or ssh, and it knows enough about most filesystems including ntfs to only save the used portions of the partitions.
No, I don't think there's space for that.
I was planning on following the instructions at:
http://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2011/centos-6-netinstall-network-insta...
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Larry Martell larry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
If you have space somewhere to save a backup, you can boot a clonezilla-live CD and do a disk->image copy that will save your current partitioning and content. It can connect to the image storage via nfs, windows file sharing, or ssh, and it knows enough about most filesystems including ntfs to only save the used portions of the partitions.
No, I don't think there's space for that.
The space could be on just about any drive - local/external or anywhere you have network write access. It's not likely you will break things with the CentOS installer, but backups are always a good thing.
As someone else mentioned, VMware is also a good alternative and has the advantage that you don't have to stop running windows to boot Linux. I think VMware Player is the free version instead of workstation, though, unless something has changed recently. But Player is now capable of creating VMs so it is suitable for that kind of use. With a little extra work you can combine a dual-boot with VMware Player so you can run it either way - my own laptap is set up that way, but I've forgotten the exact details.
On Monday 30 January 2012, Larry Martell larry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that. Has anyone used the partitioning tool that comes with 6.2 to do this? Can I have some level of confidence that it will not mess things up so that I cannot boot into Windows? if it screws up and makes Windows unbootable that would be a Very Bad Thing.
I use System Rescue CD, http://www.sysresccd.org/ , for this task.
Before starting, use Windows's defragmenter, as Mark suggested. I suggest preparing a Windows system repair disk, http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Create-a-system-repair-disc , if you can; if not, I suggest getting Hiren's Boot CD, http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ , even though I'm not convinced that all the programs on the CD can be freely redistributed.
Then boot from the System Rescue CD, start X, and use GParted to resize the Windows partition, making it smaller and creating free space for CentOS. Then reboot from the CentOS installation DVD, making sure to create a custom partition layout so as to create a new Linux partition in the space you freed up.
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 7:44 PM, Larry Martell larry.martell@gmail.com wrote:
I have a Windows 7 laptop that I want to make dual boot with CentOS 6.2. My plan was to use the Windows Disk Management tool to partition the disk, but I do not have the needed admin rights on the box to use that.
In a way it is good that you don't have admin access for Windows 7 (which BTW can be solved with many of the system rescue CDs out there).
On one install of Windows 7, the partition manager of the Windows 7 installer left a gap of about 70MB in the middle of it's 100MB admin partition and the main C: partition. I don't know the rationale behind it but there was a 70MB of disk space of not much practical use to anybody. Some may argue that 70MB may be small change in a 500GB disk but to me it is 70MB of wasted space that could be part of some other partition.
Use it at your own risk.
I realigned the partitions with Gparted. Windows 7 complained the FS needed to repaired. I popped in the Win 7 DVD, repaired it's FS and it booted fine.
-- Arun Khan
On Tuesday 31 January 2012, Arun Khan knura9@gmail.com wrote:
I realigned the partitions with Gparted. Windows 7 complained the FS needed to repaired. I popped in the Win 7 DVD, repaired it's FS and it booted fine.
Oh, yes, I wanted to mention this: don't ask GParted to align the Windows partition to megabytes or cylinders, or Windows may fail to boot.
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