On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 12:46 PM, Ljubomir Ljubojevic <office at 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 Some backup apps are outdated for W7 NTFS, but Hiren's will warn you if 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!