Search Members Help

» Welcome Guest
[ Log In :: Register ]

Mini-ITX Boards Sale, Fanless BareBones Mini-ITX, Bootable 1G DSL USBs, 533MHz Fanless PC <-- SALE $200 each!
Get The Official Damn Small Linux Book. DSL Market , Great VPS hosting provided by Tektonic
 

[ Track this topic :: Email this topic :: Print this topic ]

 reply to topic new topic new poll
Topic: how can I reformat completely and install dsl?< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
tefflox Offline





Group: Members
Posts: 4
Joined: July 2006
Posted: July 07 2006,00:18 QUOTE
Hello, I've been using partition magic 8 in windows and mostly it works fine, but I tried something daring (foolish at my skill-level) and set partition magic to delete the windows primary partition, reformat to primary ext2.  Now windows won't load, and I can't install dsl.  What can I do?  thx..
Back to top
Profile PM 
brianw Offline





Group: Members
Posts: 245
Joined: Sep. 2005
Posted: July 07 2006,00:26 QUOTE
If you can't boot the livecd and install then you could download the startup disk and start the cdrom that way then install.  If you can boot from the CD then you can run fdisk to partition any way you would like.
Back to top
Profile PM 
tefflox Offline





Group: Members
Posts: 4
Joined: July 2006
Posted: July 07 2006,00:34 QUOTE
okay.. i thought that it doesn't come with a partitioning tool since the start page says the partition must already exist.  any tips on using fdisk to make linux ext2 and the swap partitions the only ones?  thx again : -)
Back to top
Profile PM 
brianw Offline





Group: Members
Posts: 245
Joined: Sep. 2005
Posted: July 07 2006,11:43 QUOTE
startup with the live cd and open a terminal
run fdisk (or you can try cfdisk) by "sudo fdisk"
if you are familiar with the dos fdisk then I think it is similar.
If you have already trashed things anyway just delete all partitions and start over.
You will want to create a primary partition first then an extended partition then a logical partition.
It does not really matter which you use for swap or linux except you will want to know to allocate the sizes.  If you want to have a place for data so it doesn't get wiped out when you reinstall or upgrade then I would recommend adding a second logical partition for that.  Here is the output from my system:

brian@armada:/etc$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 5403 MB, 5403525120 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 698 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

  Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1         130      982768+   b  Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda2             131         698     4294080    5  Extended
/dev/hda5             131         148      136079+  82  Linux swap
/dev/hda6             149         278      982799+  83  Linux
/dev/hda7             279         698     3175199+  83  Linux

don't forget to set the types 82 for swap 83 for linux (the extended will of course be automatic when you create the extended partition).  I installed dsl to hda6 and I setup my fstab to mount /dev/hda7 on /home this way my data stays even if I change hda6 (reinstall/upgrade/install another linux/etc...).  At one point I had Ubunto installed as well and the same /home directory for both.  in my grub startup I make sure I have nofstab so my fstab file does not get over written (the fstab will still be used it just does not get rebuilt each time).  DSL does not take that much room so if you have drive space you can make partitions for other things like opt and var if you would like.  The only real consideration for the DSL partition is how much you want to add later.   If you plan to use only mydsl and/or run with the standard dsl install then one partition is more than fine.

I think the dsl install will automatically format the linux files system but you will need to run:
sudo mkswap /dev/hda? (?=whatever partition you have chossen for swap)
to make the swap partition usable.
After you run the install and start from the hard drive dsl will detect the swap and use it.  If you choose to create other partitions and use them then you would also need to run:
sudo mkfs /dev/hda? to format them to ext2 (not sure how to do ext3 would have to look into it)
Back to top
Profile PM 
Thulemanden Offline





Group: Members
Posts: 95
Joined: Sep. 2005
Posted: July 12 2006,21:00 QUOTE
Quote
brian@armada:/etc$ sudo fdisk -l


Running on a Compaq Armada? Mee to. 233Mhz; now I wish I still had my 12mHz Olivetti from 1989. It was superb.

--------------
Linuxcounter member #322220. http_//www.linuxcounter.org
Back to top
Profile PM WEB 
4 replies since July 07 2006,00:18 < Next Oldest | Next Newest >

[ Track this topic :: Email this topic :: Print this topic ]

  		reply to topic new topic new poll
Quick Reply: how can I reformat completely and install dsl?

Do you wish to enable your signature for this post?
Do you wish to enable emoticons for this post?
Track this topic
View All Emoticons
View iB Code