Making Room for Linux Before Installation

team bbl


You can resize your Windows partition when installing some Linux distributions, but not others. For instance, Mandrake and SuSE can make room for Linux during installation, but Fedora cannot. When you can't resize during installation, you need to resize the Windows partition before starting the installation. It's best to get a copy of Partition Magic for this purpose (www.symantec.com/partitionmagic/).

In some cases, you can use the FIPS utility to resize the Windows partition. However, often FIPS is not successful because of unmovable blocks in the Windows partition.

NOTE

Be sure to defragment and back up your hard disk before starting installation, as discussed in the previous section.


FIPS is on the Linux installation CD, probably in dosutils\fips20, but it may be in a different directory. You need to copy it onto a floppy disk that you can boot to resize the partition:

1.

Open the Command Prompt window.

2.

If your CD drive is D and your floppy disk is A, type:

 copy D:\dosutils\fips20\*.* A: 

3.

After you have made the floppy disk, shut down your computer.

4.

Turn on your computer, booting from the floppy.

5.

Type: FIPS. FIPS displays a list of partitions, asking which one to split.

6.

Enter the partition number of the Windows partition.

7.

FIPS asks whether you want to make a copy of your boot sector. Type Y. Put in a second floppy and type Y again. Press <Enter>.

8.

FIPS displays your partitions. Use the arrow keys to change the size of the partitions to make room for Linux. When the size is correct, press <Enter>. At this point, nothing is actually written to the hard disk. You can still change your mind.

9.

Type Y to write the partition scheme to disk. Now your hard disk is changed.

FIPS cannot resize a Windows XP NTFS file system. If your Windows partition is Windows XP NTFS, you can install Mandrake, which can resize NTFS file systems during installation, or you can purchase a commercial product that can resize NTFS file systems, such as Partition Magic. Or you can add a hard disk to your system where Linux can be installed.

    team bbl



    Spring Into Linux
    Spring Into Linux
    ISBN: 0131853546
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 362
    Authors: Janet Valade

    flylib.com © 2008-2017.
    If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net