Format/Partition

[Calum]

Doesn't really go in this topic, but what the hell, eh?
I have made a mess of my C: drive. it's 12 Gigs and only registers 8.99 Gigs, because i made a linux partition with fips that took up the rest, then uninstalled Linux and erased the partition. (there was a good reason though, so don't feel bad. The truth is, it's a laptop, and i can't run the gui in linux with my proprietary sucks-windows'-arse graphics situation)
Anyway, where was i? Aha! so i have a big clump of unused space and fips and fdisk both refuse to touch it, as far as i can see, as the partitions are too complex and all that guff. (there's the ex linux swap partition too, plus the laptop should have it's own partition for special power saving et c functions so these may be confusing fdisk and fips)
The bottom line is: how can i sort it all out without paying the

[Calum]

Oh yes, plus, if i type format c: at the dos prompt, will it format the whole disk including the 2 gigs of free space? or just the recognised c: partition of 8.99 gigs?

[Thomas]

Download Mirc32 and join EFnet, then look for Part Magic warez
Otherwise - mail me.
BTW, if you type format c:\ it formats your C:\ PARTITION!!
Once you've got Part magic make the diskets and boot from them, then you can format all your loose partitions and add them to your c:\

[Calum]

Well, i am only at internet cafe status at the moment, so many online services are out of reach to me right now. It seems to me though, that since the demo versions of partition magic are truly demos and can't be hacked (so i believe) one would need to go and download a whole copy of the install files for the full version, plus crack or serial or whatever. Is this true? (as i say, this is not an option for me as i don't have an isp at the moment. Or even a phone line actually. Well, no great shakes if that's the case)
Of course i needn't point out that this whole theoretical discussion includes stuff which is illegal in most countries and i was also interested in legitimate ways of having some sort of decent control over my own hard drive.
Thanks for replying, Whothagod....

[voidmain]

Don't pirate. If you want to use Partition Magic, buy it.  If you don't want to spend money, use FIPS (as long as you are not running NTFS).  And don't pirate MS software, use something else. Pirating actually helps MS, not hurts them as they would like people to believe, so don't do it.

[Centurian]

Hey,

Go to www.download.com and search for a program called part. It will handle just about any partioning problems and it is freeware. Oh btw it runs under dos.

Later
Centurian

[Centurian]

Hey,

To update my previous post here is the link to the Ranish Partition Manager (Part)
http://www.ranish.com/part/

Later
Centurian

[Calum]

Excellent! Thanks, Centurian, i appreciate it. I'll go and get that stuff asap. In the meantime, i'm curious, Voidmain, please expand on the mechanics of why pirating helps Microsoft. Maybe we should start a new topic for it though...

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by Calum:
In the meantime, i'm curious, Voidmain, please expand on the mechanics of why pirating helps Microsoft.

Let me ask you a question. Why are all the other vendors in the MS antitrust case completely against MSs remedy proposal to give schools 'x' dollars worth of MS software to needy schools? Short answer is: It extends the the MS monopoly. Before I start a list of reasons this would extend the MS monopoly I will give you a chance to think of a few on your own, and this certainly can be done in a new "topic". Many of the reasons on this list will directly coincide with the list of reasons that "pirating" MS software helps to extend their monopoly. RedHat proposed that MS buy the hardware for the schools and RedHat will put the software on it (for free).  This would not increase the MS monopoly and it would cause the schools to get more computers (many times more) than they would have in the MS proposal.Now I personally wouldn't care if it were RedHat, or any other vendor other than MS personally.

Here is a good read on the RedHat proposal:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/011120/202744_1.html

[Calum]

Okay, back again.
At the moment i have just repartitioned the hard drive. It was successful but a bit hit and miss, since i borrowed a mate's old copy of Partition Magic 4, which needs to run on Win98 for some functions, so that it can reboot to true DOS mode, i have WinME right now, but using my trusty Win98 (DOS forgodssake!) boot disk, i discovered that Partition Magic is a fantastic command line application as well as a funky Win32 GUI one.
Anyway. I now have a 6 gig primary partition, a 2.5 gig primary partition and a 2.5 gig extended partition. All of these are currently FAT32. I also left 120Mb of space, in case i need an easy place to put a Linux swap partition in the future. You all know about my proprietary WinME specific hardware so i won't bore you.
Now, What i propose to do is dual boot to winME and Win98. I will have winME on the small primary partition, Win98 on the big primary partition (win98 doesn't recognise the USB hole, the modem or the PC card slot properly) and once the extended FAT32 partition is clear of files after that install, i will reformat it as ext3 or whatever, and install a Linux there. from experience i know this will take a long time to do the linux install, again because of proprietary driver problems re: my laptop.
My available OSs that i have on CD are Win98 se, WinME, Red Hat 7.0 (2cds), TurboLinux 6.1 (1 cd) and a couple of small UNIX type OSs that came with the great "Steal This Computer Book 2" by Wallace Wang, which is actually about Information and Communications Technology.
The main reason for all this caffuffle is that i want an installation of WinME where i never install or change anything once it's set up, this is so i can give the system the stability it needs to continue writing CDs without a hitch. That's the first thing to go when i install a new bit of software, the CDs start burning out and i get errors all over the shop. What i can do, is save all my installation experiments for the win98 partition which will never even be told that i have a cdwriter.
Now this story does have a point...
I need to ask a couple of questions you see:
First of all, any idea what would be a good boot manager for this setup? Now, i haven't tried BootMagic yet, and it has worked well for me in the past. I will try it tonight, so if you can't be bothered thinking of a bootmanager, no worries. Then again, if you have the perfect one in mind, let's hear it. I seem to remember that LILO was quite good, but can it run from a Windows FAT32 partition? i am hazy on the details.
Secondly, i suppose i need to ask how best to find Linux drivers for this computer i have, so i can change my extended partition to a proper Linux OS. There's little to no documentation re:the hardware collectively or individually. It's a "Highlander" laptop. I heard it had an ASUS motherboard, and i know it's a P3 850 Mhx chip. I am not too up on the general normal arrangements for laptops, eg what size/connection the harddrive will be, what shape of thing the chip connects to on the motherboard et c. I can pinpoint some of the stuff i have from the device manager, and i suppose i can open it up and see what's inside but then, once i have numbers scribbled down of all this odd stuff from foreign parts, are there databases for the drivers that people have done? or what? The external cdwriter i know what it is, and it's a usb drive, but i have checked and the manufacturers only write drivers for win98, winME, win2000 and winXP, not even a Mac driver! which is ludicrous for a usb device... so where oh where will i find these drivers?
I think that's it. Still, if anybody can see a problem i haven't thought of looming, please speak up!
I want to get this system sorted once and for all. Of course, if i can get all the drivers working then it's bye bye windows!
sorry for the length of my windedness, but i just wanted to explain so i could ask, now can anyone help me? Thanks a lot in advance anyway, guys!

[voidmain]

Calum, I think you are making it out to be much harder than it really is.  

First, just a note on Partition Magic. PM comes with a great graphical DOS program that will fit nicely on a boot floppy.  It is best to just boot from floppy and run this app from floppy. I believe the program is "pqmagic.exe".  You'll need to format a bootable floppy, and stick this file on it, along with PQMAGIC.OVL and MOUSE.COM from the same directory that PQMAGIC.EXE resides (it might need a couple of other files but I don't believe so, I can check my disk if need be).  You then don't have to worry about which OS you have installed that you want to manipulate and don't have to change your OS to accomodate partition magic. I know 3.0 and 4.0 have this DOS program, not sure if the newer ones do.

Second, when you get the two partitions that you intend to install Linux on freed from files, just delete those partitions with partition magic.  Preferably leaving one large section of drive that does not have a partition on it.

Third, stick your Linux CD in the drive and boot from it (hopefully you can set your CMOS to boot from CD, it's easiest).  Linux should create the Linux partitions on that free space and install there (do a custom setup so you can set the partitions up exactly the sizes you want and how you want).

Fourth, Linux will also install LILO on the Linux parition and change the Master Boot Record on your drive to point to LILO on that Linux parition (install LILO to /dev/hda which is the MBR when it asks).  It should detect your other two Win* installations or however many you have, it will give you a chance to set up LILO at install time to boot all of your OSs. In addition to LILO some of the newer distros are using the GRUB boot manager but the setup is similar.

Fifth, don't use a *.0 version of any Linux distro. For instance I would *highly* recommend if you are thinking about trying our RedHat to use the 7.2 version. Similar with Mandrake, use 8.2.  7.2 is a lot better than 7.0.

Sixth, I will have to check on your USB CD writer but I would speculate you may have trouble with this one.  It surely will on a *.0 version of a Linux distro. CD writing works best (far superior to any other OS in my opinion) with a SCSI CD burner but I have two IDE CD burners that work just as well, one HP, and one Memorex drive.

Hopefully this helps and if not, we can help you with any more questions.

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Calum]

That is incredibly helpful, Voidmain! Thanks for taking the time to look into my questions!

I discovered the really good DOS interface in PartitionMagic last night, and i reckon i may not go back to the crummy GUI again! It's 4.1 i have so, the dos version works much better, especially since Partition Magic needs dos to run properly, and DOS doesn't come with WinME (so i am using a win98 startup floppy for the purpose of running dos).

I have now got two 3 gig partitions at the start of the drive, each with a totally unblemished (and unused! incase it all fucks up!) versions of WinME. You can't install win98 on a C: drive if you already have a copy of windows on the E: drive! but winME will let you do it.

Bootmagic, which comes with PartitionMagic, wants dos in order to run properly, and is not letting me dual boot to 2 copies of windows. What i need to do then, is install Linux (what size partition do you recommend, off a 12 gig drive, 2, 3, 4 gigs?) and LILO with it, so that LILO will allow me to boot to all three OSs/installations, yes?

does LILO have that thing where the partition to be booted from must begin before cylinder 1024? i don't think it does from memory, but it pays to check.

My CDRW drive is a USB DiamondData, model number DD4432UE, and the support drivers come from the Mitsubishi Electric Australia site at http://www.mitsubishi-electric.com.au/downloads/cd-rw/external-usb.htm . If anybody knows of other win drivers, or linux drivers, then cool, let's hear about them, but no hass, i will get around to it myself...
Lastly, why should i not use a *.0 release? I only have, as i say, RedHat 7.0 and TurboLinux 6.1, and i am not in a position to download any large stuff right now due to not having an isp (or even a proper permanent abode!) so what i have is really my only choice for the time being. Maybe there's some way i can download relevant small parts of the software and then insert them into my installation some way? sounds a bit unlikely to me...

Anyway, thanks again for your help. I'll get right on it.

[ February 08, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]

[ February 08, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]

[voidmain]

Hmmm, let me see if I got this right. You currently have a copy of Win98 and a copy of WinME installed and are dual booting between those two OSs?  If so, could you explain in a little more detail how you are doing this?  If you are currently doing this, and you are using bootmagic to do it then I would guess you have bootmagic installed on C: and have that partition set as the "active" partition, or you have another small partition with bootmagic installed by itself there.

If the above is correct, when you install Linux you'll want to set it up as I said, but you'll want to install lilo on /dev/hda as I said and then add your C: drive to the LILO boot menu during Linux install (if C: is the first partition it would be the /dev/hda1 partition). Of course if you have a separate bootmagic partition you would add it to the menu rather than the C: partition.  The way it would work when you boot your machine is you would get a lilo prompt/menu and you will have two options.  Linux and Windows.  If you select Windows it should bring up your bootmanager menu with the option to boot either Win98 or WinME.

As far as the 1024 cylinder thing.  I am pretty sure that the newer versions of LILO no longer have that limitation and if you were using RedHat 7.2 you would have the option of GRUB or LILO.  GRUB definately does not have that limitation.  I don't remember if RedHat 7.2's LILO had that limit.  To get around that what I used to do is create about 50 meg of free space at the beginning of the drive using partition magic, then on the Linux install I would create a 50MB partition on that free space for "/boot" which is where lilo and the kernel get installed.

Having said that, here is another scenerio that *should* work. Since you may be using boot magic, I believe boot magic can also boot the LINUX installation.  If you wanted to do it that way you would install LILO to your Linux partition rather than /dev/hda (if you create a 3rd partition to install all of Linux you would install LILO to /dev/hda3).  Then in the bootmanager setup add a 3rd OS and set it to boot the 3rd partition in which case bootmanager will then bootstrap LILO which in turn will start Linux automatically as it's only option.

Now I am doing all this from memory and making some assumptions but I believe it will work and I believe I have done something similar at one time or another in the past.

As far as why not run *.0 versions of Linux it's basically because they are more like beta versions than anything else. *.1 versions are usually pretty good and *.2 versions usually have most of the bugs worked out.  Having said that, you can grab the pieces you want to upgrade after install but most of them that I would suggest upgrading are pretty big. I forgot how much it sucks not to have a broadband connection.  You don't have any friends that can download a CD image and burn it for you?

As far as how much disk to give to Linux, if you can spare it I would suggest 4GB.  Not necessary but will give you enough room to install just about everything.

[ February 08, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Calum]

Again, thanks for your thoughts,

Well, i actually have 2 copies of WinME installed, because once i had got WinME on the E: partition, Win98 would not install on the C: partition. So i have WinME on the C: partition, some fat32 type files on the D: partition, and another WinME on the E: partition.

The C: partition is currently set as the default booting drive. I have set up BootMagic on the C: drive to boot to either C: or E: but it will just freeze up when i try to boot to E:. The E: partition starts about 3.1 gigs into the physical hard drive, so i thought maybe it was a 1024 cylinders thing.

What i am anxious to do is replace BootMagic with something stable (which is why the words "command line" and "linux" are running around in my mind) which *can* boot to a partition regardless of it's filesystem structure and physical place on the disk.

I didn't realise i could set up bootmagic on its own partition, but that makes sense.

I think the best arrangement may be if i could set up a small partition at the start of the drive for each OS, which could reference the computer to wherever the OS actually is. This way, all the OSs would have a representative presence under the 1024 cylinders limit, but still be able to go from anywhere on the drive in actuality. This is something i am not sure about in the strongest possible terms!

I think i will stick with the idea of using LILO, but the main question there is, will it be able to replace bootmagic completely? ie: can i use lilo to boot to Linux, WinME(E  and WinME(C  all from one place? I am not really convinced about bootmagic at the moment.

Thanks for yr speedy reply too, VoidMain!  

[voidmain]

Oh yes, I remember your situation.     I can tell you that you wouldn't have any trouble at all only using LILO if you were using ((WinME *or* Win9x) *and* (Win2k *or* WinNT)) but since you are using two copies of Win9x like OSs you may have to use another boot loader that is capable of hiding one of the Win9x like OSs while the other one is booted.  They will both think they are installed on C: drive that way and the second installation will be hidden while the first installation is booted.  Is bootmagic capable of hiding the partition?  I know System Commander and some other boot utilities have that capability but don't recall if bootmagic does.  When booted into Linux you do not need any partitions hidden and it will be able to see both the Win* installs.  I don't believe LILO or GRUB are capable of hiding one of the Win* partitions when booted in the other.  And I don't really have any experience with ME so I don't know how much different it's boot loader is than Win9x. I would suggest doing a Google search for "dual boot" and Windows.  There are many documents out there for doing just what you want to do.  I'm even thinking you could install both Win98 and WinME on the C: drive (but in different directories) but I've never done this.  I know you can do it with NT like installs with 9x like installs no problem.  Then you just use NTs boot loader to boot either Win9x or NT by editing the BOOT.INI file.

I don't know if I've been any help at all on this but good luck. I can do some more research on this later this evening if you like and come up with an exact scenerio that should definately work for you.