Hard Drive Partitions/ Installing Mandriva

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Someone28624

Big Geek
While, I'm taking the plunge head first into the wonderful world of linux. I have been playing with Knoppix for about a year, and now feel really comfortable with the linux interface overall. I want to install Mandriva on my hard drive now. I'm feeling okay with the process, but I know my Win XP Partition takes up my hard drive. How do I lower up my space XP is taking up, without needing to delete XP and start over?
 
I believe the Mandriva installer has a partitioning tool which will make a partition out of your existing windows partition as long as there is space available. It'll resize your partition and make a reiser FS partition.
 
Addis said:
I believe the Mandriva installer has a partitioning tool which will make a partition out of your existing windows partition as long as there is space available. It'll resize your partition and make a reiser FS partition.
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Wow, that's easier than I expected. This download is taking forever though. Gah. 2.6 gigs and we are moving at a blazing speed of 24.9 kbps.
 
Its very feature packed though, yet you can choose what you want to install anyway. It is a lot easier to install than windows you're right.
 
So when I install it, I shouldn't loose any documents in windows, right?

<---Has had it up to here *points high* with windows, but still wants it there for the transition.
 
I'd back your docs up before proceeding. Mandriva can resize NTFS partitions, but NTFS is a fragile filesystem and breaks easily. In other words, assume it's going to break and hope it doesn't. :)
 
Anti-Trend said:
I'd back your docs up before proceeding. Mandriva can resize NTFS partitions, but NTFS is a fragile filesystem and breaks easily. In other words, assume it's going to break and hope it doesn't. :)
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Eh, just had to reformat hard drive last week, so everything it backed up. Not only was that the motive I needed to proceed, but also the only reason I am brave enough to try this. I just finished burning the cds printing out 2 install guides, and defragging, so here goes hopefully something! Only thing I am afraid of is messing up beyond repair.
 
You can mess up your Windows install beyond repair, but your hardware can't be damaged by this procedure, if that's what you're worried about. The standard procedure for setting up a multiboot environment is to have a Windows partition and a Linux partition from the get-go, so you don't have to resize your Windows partition. Sometimes the resizing works flawlessly, sometimes it makes Windows unbootable. The success rate is directly related to the amount of corruption on the NTFS partition (you'd be surprised how quickly NTFS partitions start looking haggard).
 
Anti-Trend said:
You can mess up your Windows install beyond repair, but your hardware can't be damaged by this procedure, if that's what you're worried about. The standard procedure for setting up a multiboot environment is to have Widows partition and a Linux partition from the get-go, so you don't have to resize your Windows partition. Sometimes the resizing works flawlessly, sometimes it makes Windows unbootable. The success rate is directly related to the amount of corruption on the NTFS partition (you'd be surprised how quickly NTFS partitions start looking hagard).
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So the fact that my windows install is only a week old improves my chances of windows being bootable?

Well, I am typing this in my new Mandriva install! I was amazed at how painless it was. So far, me likes. But I haven't tried to boot into windows yet, so I'll let you know.
 
Okay, Windows booted fine. Yay! It was a success. So far I can say my monitor, mouse, keyboard, video card, ethernet card, sound card, and speaker work fine. I have yet to try my digital camera, video capture card, and printer. I need to do some fooling around before my TV tuner works.

Things went much smoother than expected. I resized Windows to 60 gigs or my 80 gig drive, then did the auto thing for sizing FAT32 and Linux. Worked fine. When Disk 2 was in, I got a few error messages, but just continued, and everything was fine.

Now, does anyone know a way to get in MSN chat in Linux?
 
You don't mean that you installed Mandriva on a FAT32 partition, do you? :swt:

As for MSN, I use Gaim, personally. It allows you to connect to your MSN, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, Google (Jabber), Zephyr, Gadu Gadu, etc. accounts simultaneously. There's also Kopete, but I don't like it very much (very buggy). Probably the first thing you should do with your new Linux system is set up your software repositories, so you can get updates and easily install new software. Here (or here) is a good place to start. If you're running 2006 RC2, you'll need to choose "Cooker" as your version until the official release of 2006. At that time, you'll probably want to switch to the 2006 mirrors. Just start a new thread if you need help with URPMI.

All the best,
-AT
 
Eh..I hope I didn't install it on FAT32. Everything seems to be working well.

I know about GAIM for MSN messenger, but what I want is to go into MSN chat with msn groups.
 
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