Partitions, MBR, etc.
Rick
ricklyb at yahoo.com
Mon Aug 12 00:24:21 PDT 2002
Thanks for the wealth of information. Being new to the *nix world,
many of these details are difficult...
--- Mark Street <jet at sonic.net> wrote:
> How many distros do you want to install.... 4 max? Let's see......
> I
> would move the installed Linux system back to hda1. First change its
>
> partition type and format it with your favorite filesystem. Take the
>
> system down to single user and either tar or cp -a everything to hda1
> from
> each partition you have Linux installed on. Edit /etc/fstab on hda1
> and
> point / at hda1 comment out the /hda8 entry, edit /etc/lilo.conf on
> /dev/hda1 and re-run lilo. Leave swap there for now. Reboot and
> pray...
> you did make a boot disk didn't you? Make sure it works...
4 distros are sufficient for now, but space for a couple more would
be nice, to allow for "crash and burn" testing.
Yes, the boot disk works.
But, doesn't this require that the partition table remain unchanged?
So, both hda6(/boot) and hda8(/) should be copied to hda1?
Could you supply the entire tar or cp command, with their options?
/etc/fstab now contains : (with some blanks deleted to fit...)
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
/dev/hda7 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
--- end of /etc/fstab ---
/etc/lilo.conf now contains :
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=50
message=/boot/message
linear
default=linux
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-3
label=linux
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.18-3.img
read-only
root=/dev/hda8
other=/dev/hda1
optional
label=DOS
>
> Technically you could create 1or 2 more primary partitions... or go
> right
> for the extended partition.
I used the extended partition before, to provide uniform treatment
to all...
>
> Now... swap is hanging down there at /dev/hda7 ..... you would
> probably
> want it close to the center of the disk after all is said and done.
> 9G down
> from the top or so.
>
> You need a plan man. Once you back out and clear the deck. 4 - 4.5G
> systems would be peachy. To give yourself flexibility I would go
> with just
> a / partiton.
Yes, I agree. Could you suggest a workable partitioning layout?
>
> At 01:37 PM 8/9/2002 -0700, Rick wrote:
> >I want to repartition a 20 GB hard drive.
> >The goal is to load and experiment with
> >one or more additional linux distributions,
> >while preserving data in existing partitions.
> >Backups are impractical, as only floppy is
> >available.
>
> Are you going to install Linux only? Min. partitions is 2, / and
> swap. swap can be common.... or are you planning to get creative
> with
> partitioning schemes...
Originally I left hda1 for DOS.
The simplest partitioning scheme that does the job is the best
solution (I follow the KISS philosophy!)
>
>
> >Q 1. Is there a simple way to backup and
> >restore the MBR, using floppy, to stave off
> >potential disaster?
>
> Not that it will stave off disaster...backup MBR
> dd if=/dev/hda of=mbr.img bs=512 count=1
Done, and copied to floppy...
>
> >fdisk shows the existing layout :
> >
> >Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 2482 cylinders
> >Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
> >
> > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> >/dev/hda1 * 1 243 1951866 b Win95 FAT32
> >/dev/hda2 244 2481 17976735 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
> >/dev/hda5 858 2481 13044748+ b Win95 FAT32
> >/dev/hda6 244 250 56164+ 83 Linux
> >/dev/hda7 251 267 136521 82 Linux swap
> >/dev/hda8 268 857 4739143+ 83 Linux
> >
> >Partition table entries are not in disk order
> >
> >So, in brief :
> >hda1 is unused, is reserved for DOS, but could be converted
> >to a linux partition and used for temporary storage.
>
> 1.9G on hda1
>
> >hda2 contains hda5,6,7,8.
> >hda6,7,8 contain RH v.7.3 boot, swap, and root, respectively.
> >hda5 is unused. This is the space to be repartitioned.
>
> >Q 2. Using fdisk, if hda5 is deleted,
> >hda6,7,8 are renumbered as hda5,6,7.
> >If this is written back to the MBR, my guess is that
> >LILO and RH v.7.3 will no longer work?
>
> NO, you must edit /etc/fstab to reflect the anticipated change in
> partitions. You must also edit /etc/lilo.conf and rerun lilo.
>
It sounds like this is a moot question, if RH v.7.3 moves to hda1...
Or was that just an interim step?
>
> >Q 3. Using fdisk, if hda5,6,7,8 are deleted,
> >and then recreated by specifying start and end cylinders,
> >the following layout is produced :
> > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> >/dev/hda1 * 1 243 1951866 b Win95 FAT32
> >/dev/hda2 244 2481 17976735 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
> >/dev/hda5 858 867 80325 83 Linux
> >/dev/hda6 244 250 56196 83 Linux
> >/dev/hda7 251 267 136521 82 Linux swap
> >/dev/hda8 268 857 4739143+ 83 Linux
> >/dev/hda9 868 877 80293+ 83 Linux
> >/dev/hda10 878 887 80293+ 83 Linux
> >etc...
> >The number of blocks reported has changed,
> >in particular for hda6.
> >If this is written back to the MBR will it continue to work?
> >
> >Q 4. Can hda7 be used as swap for multiple linux distributions,
> >or does each distribution need a dedicated swap partition?
>
> Use a common swap partition as you will not be running them both at
> the
> same time.
>
Great.
>
> >Q 5. Should I reserve a bunch of small partitions below the
> >"1024 cylinder barrier" (like hda9,10), to provide a boot point
> >for potential future distributions?
> >How large do they need to be?
>
> How old is the system. This is less and less of an issue with newer
> BIOS's
> and lilo doesn't give a rip. Better yet use grub.
>
It's an old Compaq Presario 4770 with an old BIOS.
(no documentation, the BIOS setup seems inaccessible, but the new
20G disk seems to work ok).
I don't know much about either LILO or GRUB.
LILO is installed and works.
Is GRUB easy to install?
Thanks again,
Rick
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