[Resolved] 2nd HardDrive Installaion Questions

[bhamm77]

Good Day,

About two month's ago I started a thread in which I asked advice about installing a second HD on my system. I had not yet purchased the harddrive but was curious about how to set it up once purchased. below is a link to that specific thread in which I received some great advice.

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3106300.0

I have now purchased the HDD and put it on my system.

Here is what I bought:
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

It is now time to configure & partition the drive where I will be installing Kubuntu 9.10 Karmic. I would also like to make a separate partition for my home folder. My current & primary HD is setup as follows.

  Device Boot   Start     End   Blocks  Id System
/dev/sda1        1    1017   7688488+  b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda2  *    1018    9027  60555600  7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3      10079    10337   1958040  5 Extended
/dev/sda4      9028    10078   7945560  83 Linux
/dev/sda5      10080    10337   1950480  82 Linux swap / Solaris

I will eventually be removing my kubuntu partitions from this drive to allow the Windows XP to be all that is on this drive. It would be good to get the new set-up functioning properly before removing my Jaunty from this disk.

I have done my backups & created a PartedMagic Live CD(in case it is needed). I have copy of my currently installed programs & my sources list. Here is what I would like help with....

1. I would like to be able to boot to either of the 2 HDD's.
2. I would like to have an extra partition ready on the new in case I want to install another Linux distro.
3. Will I be able to add more extra partitions in the future to the new HDD, without damaging the setup that I am undertaking?

My thoughts on how to set this up on the new HDD:

***use the Kubuntu 9.10 Karmic Live CD to create my new setup so that it will make the HDD bootable without me having to do it manually.
***create 3 extended partitions & 1 swap partition.
one for my Kubuntu OS
one for my /home directory
one for future endeavors (I really want to try the new Google OS when it is released)

I wanted to hear from you guys on the forum before I proceeded with my project. This is a 1st time for me. Any warnings suggestions or advise from you all who have done this before would be greatly appreciated

[Qqmike]

Re: 2nd HardDrive Installaion Questions

I use GParted Live CD.

I would NOT use the Kubuntu installer to do your partitioning. I would use GParted Live CD to do it BEFORE running the Kubuntu installer CD. Much better, safer, more relaxing (less stressful)

I don't think you mean three Extended partitions. You mean Logical partitions.

You can have 4 primary partitions on a HD. To have more than that, you may create three primary partitions and then an Extended partition, the extended partition counts as a primary partition. So that would be four. Then, inside the Extended you may have Logical partitions (which also function as primaries). When you set up your partitioning on the new HD using GParted Live CD, note:
> Create a partition table (GParted will prompt you to do so on a new drive; or choose Device > Create partition table). Accept the default type, namely MSDOS partition table.
> When you build your Extended partition, make it go all the way to the very end of your HDD. That way you'll have plenty of room inside it for Logical partitions as the need arises (that is, leave yourself plenty of unallocated space).
> See Rog131 below for tips on partition sizes.
> That's a big HD, you can have MANY operating systems on it and a large /home for your main OS. Caution: Currently, you may be limited to the number of partitions you may have on a drive using standard partition table--Is that number 16? That is, you may be limited to 16 partitions total (maybe someone knows that number). You only need, say, 15 GB for the root partition of Kubuntu (or any Linux OS); and any size of home, depending on how much data you have. Many people use just 25 GB-50 GB for their /home, but you may need more ( ? ).
> To be safe, I'd say to use ext3 as the format for your Linux partitions, though some here will coax you into the new ext4 (which GParted does support, btw). Don't forget to create ONE swap partition, maybe the size of twice your PC's RAM (you can afford the space on that big HDD!). So if your RAM is 1 GB, create a swap partition of 2 GB. You only need one swap partition. Your other OSs (that you install in the future) can all use that same swap partition (only one OS runs at a time, of course).


GParted (Live CD, USB, HD)
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
New Manual. New man page. See Documentation:
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/documentation.php

Partitioning—how to, Rog131:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3090704.0

[bhamm77]

Re: 2nd HardDrive Installaion Questions

I don't think you mean three Extended partitions. You mean Logical partitions.

Qqmike,

You are very correct. I meant "Logical"

Wanted to write back and say thanks for the help & let you know how it went.

Using my Parted Magic Live Cd (which has GParted on it), everything worked out the 1st time flawlessly. If you've never check out Parted Magic, check out this link.
http://partedmagic.com/programs.html
It's a pretty awesome tool. Lots of capabitlities & easy to use. I made an extended partition with 3 logicals.

15 gb for / (Kunbuntu 9.10)
50 gb for /home
4 gb for swap.

That is what I have for now. Kubuntu installed just fine & I can boot to either hard drive. I wanted to see what you though on a couple of other issues.

1. I'm thinking of making my /home partition ext2 instead of ext3. Because I use (Explore2fs) to see my /home from windows, and it seems to work better with ext2.

2. Am I able to resize a partition without erasing the data that is on it? For example I think I may want to go with 20gb for my /.

Thanks for you help.

[Qqmike]

Re: 2nd HardDrive Installaion Questions

ext2 for /home -- I don't see why not. Of course, ext3 has journaling, but folks still use ext2 (and for that matter FAT32) all the time, even for bootable flash drives. As always--there are so many unpredictables in running a PC--always keep timely backups of any key data/photos/focs.

resizing your root / partition -- Yep, should be no problems. Folks do it all the time. i have, including not only Linux partitions but also Windows XP. And again, simply think three times before doing it, checking that you have enough room to expand it, making sure you have a good power supply to the PC!, etc. (I wouldn't do things like that during a heavy lightening storm, even with a power back up). Now, when you do that, though, your UUID that identifies the partition will probably change, and so your /etc/fstab may need manual editing; also GRUB references to UUID may need editing (in GRUB 2 you could regenerate the boot menu /boot/grub/grub.cfg by running sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg; in reggular GRUB legacy, try sudo update-grub). When you first try to boot into it, you MAY have a problem, and so either use SGD to boot into it, or boot into it manually. See for 9.04 and GRUB Legacy (the regular, older GRUB):

How To GRUB Methods - Toolkit
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081671.0
SECTION 8: Rescue booting or by menu.lst
GRUB booting methods; => booting in an emergency at grub>


For 9.10, using GRUB 2, it would be:
GRUB 2 A Guide for Users
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3106368.0