noob needs help with hd

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: noob needs help with hd
started by: simonjackson79

Posted by simonjackson79 on April 16 2005,12:43

Hi,

I'm almost completely new to linux (used redhat for a while years ago), and I need a little help with configuring my hard drive.

I have a hd that has windows on the primary partition, which I want to keep as I need the use of M$ Access. I have freed up some space for a new partition, I need to know how to create a linux partition and mount it so DSL recognises it so I can store files, programs, settings etc.

Anyone have a guide or is willing to help me do this?

Thanks in advance,

Si

Posted by cbagger01 on April 17 2005,04:01

My advice is to use Partition Magic or better yet boot up with knoppix or INSERT and use QTParted program.

Both of these programs will allow you to resize your hard drive partitions and free up space for a new partition.

From there you can either use KNOPPIX/INSERT or DSL itself to create a new partition using cfdisk from a terminal window:

sudo su
cfdisk /dev/hda

(where hda is the name of your hard drive. It might also be hdb or some other device name if it is not the Primary IDE controller's Master drive).

Then create an EXT2 or EXT3 partition for linux files or if you want to create a partition that can be used by both operating systems, you can create a FAT (DOS/Win95/WinNT) or better yet a FAT32 (Win95OSR2, Win98, Win2000, WinXP, Win2003) partition. Either use the Microsoft tools inside Windows or you can use the dosfstools extension for DSL:

< http://www.ibiblio.org/pub....ols.dsl >

KNOPPIX and INSERT should also have this capability.

Once you have created the partition and formatted it (mkfs -t vfat /dev/hda2 or mkfs -t ext2 /dev/hda2 where hda2 is replaced by your new partition location), reboot and DSL will automatically detect it.

You can mount it by opening up the emelfm file manager and navigate to the /mnt directory.

Then Right-Click on the appropriate mountpoint ("hda2/" in my example) and choose Mount from the context menu.

Then, the top level of your new partition should appear. Feel free to begin to copy files over to it.

Good Luck.