tehsusenoh Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Here's what I have: 500gb hard drive (not really exact, the 2 partitions are as big as possible on this drive) -232gb vista -232gb osx leopard -using bcd (i can live with darwin too) What I want to do: Add xp to this setup, possibly shrinking vista Is this possible without killing my setup and data completely? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 You cannot touch the HFS+ partition (leopard) after you partitioned it. You will have to shrink the vista partition and create another NTFS partition from it for XP. I would reccomend using the GParted LiveCD for this. Easily the simplest way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tehsusenoh Posted October 1, 2008 Author Share Posted October 1, 2008 Thanks. But would that screw up the darwin bootloader? The partition number would have changed, correct? BTW I just happen to be downloading GParted right now. Dumb luck, I guess. I also read somewhere that if you turn off Journaling on the HFS+ partition, then you can resize it. I don't know if that applies in my case, though. http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?id=642 is where I found it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 No, you cannot resize HFS+ partitions, sorry. I've tried As I do not use the Darwin bootloader, I use GRUB, so I don't know if that would affect it at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tehsusenoh Posted October 1, 2008 Author Share Posted October 1, 2008 Well, that's what I'll do then. Gonna try it in VMWare to make sure there are no issues. EDIT: It failed the first time because I didn't shut down windows correctly. I started windows correctly and shut it down correctly. No error the next time Now, how would I do this but with adding xp and ubuntu studio? i'm pretty sure I would make a ntfs (60gb for me), ext3 (18gb) and a swap (2gb) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 Yes, that partitioning would work. You don't need much space for Linux if you don't use it much, and you should have around 2 GB of swapspace, so yes, that's correct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tehsusenoh Posted October 2, 2008 Author Share Posted October 2, 2008 Yeah, the ext3 partition will probably be only 13gb and the ntfs one 65. Going to burn the CDs and install. One more thing. Do I need to restore BCD from a vista install disk? Or will it just be there anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 When you install Ubuntu, the GRUB bootloader installs with it. Use GRUB, not BCD. If you need help setting up GRUB if it's not working right away, just ask. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tehsusenoh Posted October 2, 2008 Author Share Posted October 2, 2008 Yeah, I tried to use WinGRUB to replace BCD, but it had lots of problems. I will need help. I've looked at guides and almost all said to use this for booting OSX: root (hdx,x) - yes i know what my values would be makeactive chainloader +1 boot But wouldn't that just make Darwin the default bootloader, so when you restart, GRUB wouldn't load? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 How are your drives partitioned? (i.e. # drives, #partitions on each drive, etc.) Are they all MBR? Or is the OSX one GUID/GPT? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tehsusenoh Posted October 2, 2008 Author Share Posted October 2, 2008 This is what it will be: MBR on one hard drive Partition 1 - Vista Ultimate Partition 2 - XP MCE Partition 3 - Ubuntu Studio Partition 4 - Swap Partition 5 - Kalyway 10.5.2 (can't update with out my ethernet, but I only have wireless at the moment - Belkin thing) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Here's a sample of what GRUB's menu.lst should look like after ubuntu installs: title Vista Ultimate (Ubuntu will automatically create this according to your system) root (hd0,0) makeactive chainloader +1 title XP MCE (Ubuntu will automatically create this according to your system) root (hd0,1) makeactive chainloader +1 title Ubuntu (Ubuntu will automatically create this according to your system) root (hd0,2) kernel blah blah blah (ubuntu will have this in here) - Now, there are a few options for OSX, just see what works: title Kalyway 10.5.2 (option 1 - standard) root (hd0,4) makeactive chainloader +1 title Kalyway 10.5.2 (option 2 - my GUID/GPT way) root (hd0,4) chainloader (hd0,4)+1 title Kalyway 10.5.2 (option 3) root (hd0,4) makeactive chainloader (hd0,4)+1 title Kalyway 10.5.2 (option 4) rootnoverify (hd0,4) makeactive chainloader +1 One of those should work. If they don't, then your OSX install is bad or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tehsusenoh Posted October 2, 2008 Author Share Posted October 2, 2008 Thanks. While I wasn't able to replace BCD, I was able to make a wingrub floppy. I used option one and it booted to Leopard, but when I rebooted without the floppy in, it went back to Darwin. I am going to do everything here now, so I'll be back tomorrow afternoon (I have school!). The order I install in will be this: resize xp linux Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Make sure you tell us how it went Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tehsusenoh Posted October 2, 2008 Author Share Posted October 2, 2008 XP installed I had to put the ext3 and linux-swap on an extended partition. Ubuntu studio didn't show the partition. What now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 What do you mean didn't show the partition? During the Ubuntu install? Which partition? Details needed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tehsusenoh Posted October 2, 2008 Author Share Posted October 2, 2008 There can't be more than 5 primary partitions on a disk so I put 3 and 4 on an extended partition. When I booted from the Ubuntu Studio install disk, the choice for partition 3 wasn't there. Then my hard drive got all screwed up, so I lost xp, my 2 linux partitions and leopard. Oh well, not like they had anything important on them anyway... I am now thinking about redoing the entire disk according to advice from you. I want: Vista (I make my own vLite disk) - 200 gb Leopard (Will be Kalyway 10.5.2 because no other disk works for me) - 200gb gOS (Ubuntuish?) - what ever is left over from the other partitions This will probably be easier because there will only be 4 partitions instead of 5. I am not good at multibooting, so care to give me some insight? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 3, 2008 Share Posted October 3, 2008 Okay, yeah, those partitions will work well. Vista being on the first partition is a good idea, just because it's "Special" and wants the first one. Whatever. Install Vista first. Then OSX on the second partition. Install OSX second. Then Linux on the third partition, and Linux-swap on the fourth. Install Linux last, so GRUB will be the current bootloader. Back in the day when I had only one 120 GB hard drive (pain-in-the-balls), this is how I had it set up. For a choice of Linux distro, I can tell that you're not really a kind of person who wants to fiddle with things. You just want everything to work. Then go with Ubuntu. Ubuntu is by far the easiest Linux distro I have ever used. I'm assuming that you have a bad taste for Ubuntu right now because of Ubuntu-Studio. Just plain Ubuntu is far more workable that it's Studio... "add-on", if I can say that. I have personally used Ubuntu-Studio, and... just normal Ubuntu works better. It installs a lot nicer that Studio, too. You'll notice that right away. The only drawback with Ubuntu is, it looks terrible and unappealing. Get a nice lime green theme on there, and then we'll talk. If you want to tinker around with Linux, though, I would recommend openSUSE. This is the distro I am currently using, and it's nice. It's real nice. It looks nice. I love the way the put the lime green on there. Beautiful. But it doesn't work the way you want it to right after you install it like Ubuntu does. I had to do about 2 days of tinkering with it to get it to work right. That included the user accounts/permissions, kernel settings, other partition mount settings, their odd administrator panel, and the most aggravating of all, their modified version of GRUB. Oh yeah, openSUSE's GRUB looks nice, but it is seriously whack compared to the normal version. And openSUSE still doesn't work exactly right today. But it looks nice. So, in all, I would recommend Ubuntu for you. Their new version, 8.10, is coming out in around 28 days, so when I reformat my hard drives again (I do it every 2-3 months, I'm currently at 1.5 - coming up), I'll be putting Ubuntu back on my PC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 8, 2008 Share Posted October 8, 2008 so... how we doing with this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tehsusenoh Posted October 9, 2008 Author Share Posted October 9, 2008 Sorry, been away. I didn't reinstall vista, but shrunk the partition. I created a OSX partition, a ext3 and a linux-swap. I did this before you posted, so I installed ubuntu studio. I do believe you. No support for my wifi usb dongle and grub doesn't work with a picture (it is supposed to, but doesn't). I think I am just going to reinstall ubuntu regularly (Sorry, no lime green. I like the blue one that comes with it.) Is this possible? I know I need to backup my grub menu.lst, but is there anything complicated to reinstalling ubuntu? I am not really a tinkerer, so i'll just stick to ubuntu. Thanks (downloading ubuntu 8.04 now, but should i get 8.10?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 As long as you have GRUB working, that's good. Most important part As for picture in the background of GRUB, I do believe I had issues with that as well. I can't quite remember, but honestly, it doesn't really matter. You see the screen for a total of ten seconds when your computer is on, so... (Oh, and the lime-green is a personal preference of mine. I wasn't directing that towards you. I was just ranting about how ugly Ubuntu is ) No, there is nothing "complicated" to reinstalling Ubuntu. Just copy the menu.lst to a different partition, reinstall Ubuntu, and copy it back to the new Ubuntu install. It shouldn't change, unless you repartitioned for some reason. Yes, it's not really worth it to download 8.04 now. 8.10 is coming out in a couple weeks, (supposed to be a lot better, see how that goes), so the second it is released I'm downloading it. (And using their ShipIt service to get free cds sent to me in 10 weeks - which I love, except for the wait). Ubuntu-Studio should work fine for you up til then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tehsusenoh Posted October 11, 2008 Author Share Posted October 11, 2008 Sorry again for the delay (wedding this time), Same here, I definitely will download 8.10 immediately. But I am going to reinstall Ubuntu for now. Tomorrow I am getting ATT U-verse, so at least my speed will bee good when I am downloading 8.10 (the servers will probably get flooded anyway). EDIT: I just installed Ubuntu, but my Belkin 54g USB v3 still doesn't work. Any thoughts? It also doesn't work in OSX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 13, 2008 Share Posted October 13, 2008 Yeah supposedly 8.10 is getting a makeover in it's style and overall look, which is good and I'm looking forward to. As for your W-LAN adapter thingy, try Googling it's name with "Linux driver" after it, see what you get. You have a good chance to find a Linux driver for it, though an OSX driver might be an issue. Also try the manufacturer's website (belkin.com?) and searching for Linux and OSX drivers there (made for a real Mac, but they'll work with OSx86). If not, try looking here at InsanelyMac and see what you come up with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprjacob Posted October 29, 2008 Share Posted October 29, 2008 Yay one day left until release! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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