Can Puppy read dynamic disks?

Using applications, configuring, problems
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Chraz_Ritt
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Can Puppy read dynamic disks?

#1 Post by Chraz_Ritt »

Can any version of puppy read a dynamic disk?

tempestuous
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#2 Post by tempestuous »

This is a complicated subject, and it would have been better if you had told us what you want to achieve
ie. dual boot with Windows7?
Dual-boot with Windows8?
Access RAID array?
What type of RAID array?

Puppy kernels already support dynamic disks - but this only covers the Windows2000/WindowsXP dynamic disks, as recorded in the MBR (master boot record).
Puppy also supports RAID, once additional utilities have been installed.

But Vista, Windows7 and Windows8 now use a different form of dynamic disk configuration, via GTP/EFI, and Linux does not fully support this, although there have been some reports of being able to hack the boot record and get it working.

There's also the added complication of the new UEFI bios, which is discussed here -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=83402

Chraz_Ritt
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#3 Post by Chraz_Ritt »

So basically If I was booting puppy from a cd and had my save file on an internal HDD which also had Win 7 on it the Hdd would not have been a Win 7 type of dynamic disk? I also had Linux Mint installed on the drive, but was dual booting with grub installed on an external HDD.

Thanks for your reply, and if my conclusions above are correct then I can go ahead with my project. Please let me know if they are or are not.

tempestuous
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#4 Post by tempestuous »

Chraz_Ritt wrote:If I was booting puppy from a cd and had my save file on an internal HDD which also had Win 7 on it the Hdd would not have been a Win 7 type of dynamic disk?
Most likely, yes.
To know for sure, run the Disk Management utility in Windows7, and you should see your disk labelled as "Basic", not "Dynamic".

Attached is a screen grab from my (relatively new) computer, and you can see that my main hard drive is Basic. I'm triple-booting WindowsXP, Windows8, and Linux.
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Chraz_Ritt
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#5 Post by Chraz_Ritt »

I guess it would have been better if I had asked a more detailed question instead of the one I did ask, so let me lay it out fully for you.

I have a now 3 year old HP laptop that was in the upper half of their lineup when I bought it. It came with Win 7 Home Premium installed, and some other partitions that held recovery and HP software. I don't recall deleting any partitions when I created an extended partition, and a few logical drives so I could multi-boot Win 7 and a couple of distros of Linux. I had made 1 of those logical drives to keep the Puppy save file in, and things were fine with Puppy, and the distros of Linux i was trying out in the other partitions. Now I have had to replace the HDD because it failed totally, and I bought a OEM HDD from HP which came with a set of recovery disks instead of having a recovery partition preloaded on it. I want to create partitions for Linus on my new HDD, but the recovery has used all the partition slots for primary partitions, below is a capture of how G Parted sees my HDD:
Image

I have been asking about having the content of ether /dev/sda2 or /dev/sda3 in a logical drive within an extended partition so I can create the additional partitions I want. /dev/sda2 is my C: partition, and I have been asking about it on the Microsoft support forums, while /dev/sda3 is the recovery partition from HP and I have been asking about it on their support forums. The people from both companies posting as experts say that their software must be in a primary partition to function. They both also claim that if there are more than 4 partitions on the HDD Win 7 will automatically convert the drives to dynamic. The Windows person; "Win7 only supports 4 basic partitions, if you create more all drives will be converted to Dynamic and the two HP tools/Recovery will no longer function", while the HP expert says; "Windows, by default, will convert a drive to dynamic if it has more than four partitions.". Yet the Windows Disk Management help file advises against intentionally converting a disk to dynamic without considering the consequences first, and gives no warnings about creating more than 4 partitions causing an automatic conversion.

The HP expert tells me that because I have the recovery DVDs I can safely delete /dev/sda3, and /dev/sda4 to make space for partitions, but still advises against exceeding the 4 partition limit that they say will cause the conversion.

BTW, have you had Win 7 in a multi-boot machine, and exceeded that 4 partition limit? If so did Win 7 automatically convert the HDD to a dynamic disk?

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James C
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#6 Post by James C »

You can create up to four partitions on a basic disk using the MBR partition scheme: either four primary partitions, or three primary and one extended. The extended partition can contain one or more logical drives.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... s.85).aspx

For what it's worth, I multi-boot a number of Windows 7 machines with up to 12 partitions ......still as a basic disc...... no problems.
The 4th partition is extended. The extended partition is divided up into the desired number of logical partitions, which is where I place my Linux distros.

Disclaimer: My experience is with machines without any recovery partitions, etc..

Chraz_Ritt
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#7 Post by Chraz_Ritt »

Have you by any chance put the Win 7 or C: partition in an extended partition?

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James C
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#8 Post by James C »

Chraz_Ritt wrote:Have you by any chance put the Win 7 or C: partition in an extended partition?
Never tried putting Windows on an extended partition.I always install my Windows installs on the first primary partitions and then follow with the Linux partitions.
Here's the layout on this box.
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tempestuous
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#9 Post by tempestuous »

Chraz_Ritt wrote:The people from both companies posting as experts say that their software must be in a primary partition to function.
Correct - definitely in the case of the Windows 7 operating system, and possibly true in the case of recovery files and tools.
Chraz_Ritt wrote:Have you by any chance put the Win 7 or C: partition in an extended partition?
James C wrote:Never tried putting Windows on an extended partition.
It's not possible.
Chraz_Ritt wrote:They both also claim that if there are more than 4 partitions on the HDD Win 7 will automatically convert the drives to dynamic.
Correct.
Chraz_Ritt wrote:Yet the Windows Disk Management help file advises against intentionally converting a disk to dynamic without considering the consequences first
I agree - this process may not update the boot record, and Windows 7 will be unbootable. You would then need to reinstall Windows 7 from scratch ... and you could not install Linux at all.
Chraz_Ritt wrote:The HP expert tells me that because I have the recovery DVDs I can safely delete /dev/sda3, and /dev/sda4 to make space for partitions.
Yes, this is your easiest option. Since these partitions were created from a Windows environment, my preference would be to delete them from a Windows environment.
Now boot to the Puppy CD, run GParted and create a new extended partition in the unallocated space. Then within this extended partition, create a Linux swap partition of at least 512MB, then the remainder as an ext3 partition, formatted with ext3.
Once you have saved these changes, you should then right-click the swap partition and select "swapon", to activate the swap.
Reboot to the Puppy CD before installing.


My personal preference would be to nuke all partitions on the drive, and start from scratch. In fact, I would have bought a new hard drive from a generic supplier, not the HP drive with all their complicated nonsense pre-installed.
Last time your hard drive failed, did any of the HP recovery tools help you???

Chraz_Ritt
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#10 Post by Chraz_Ritt »

tempestuous wrote:
Chraz_Ritt wrote:They both also claim that if there are more than 4 partitions on the HDD Win 7 will automatically convert the drives to dynamic.
Correct.
Ok, I'm officially confused you are agreeing with the what the HP and MS experts are saying while it runs contrary to what James says is his experience in this quote:
James C wrote: For what it's worth, I multi-boot a number of Windows 7 machines with up to 12 partitions ......still as a basic disc...... no problems.
The 4th partition is extended. The extended partition is divided up into the desired number of logical partitions, which is where I place my Linux distros.
And contrary to what I thought you were saying in your earlier post where you showed a screenshot of a HDD with 2 primary, and 4 logical partitions. Now I understand that the screenshot may be of a HDD with Win 8 and not Win 7, but I thought that Win 8 also is supposed to convert the disks too. Adding to my confusion is the screenshot from James showing 3 primary and 8 or 9 logical partitions on which his ability to run Linux on the machine suggests to me that the disk is basic.

Please unconfuse me.

tempestuous
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#11 Post by tempestuous »

Chraz_Ritt wrote:in your earlier post where you showed a screenshot of a HDD with 2 primary, and 4 logical partitions.
I think you haven't grasped the concept of logical partitions - these are "sub-partitions", so to speak, of a single extended partition.
In my case, I have 2 primary partitions and 1 extended partition. Total partitions = 3, thus conforming to the MBR standard for Basic disks ...
... however I can divide up the extended partition into as many logical partitions as I wish!! The MBR still sees 3 partitions total.
The only limitation is a practical one - beyond 23 logical partitions you run out of letters of the alphabet - then it becomes complicated to identify and mount the partitions.

Chraz_Ritt wrote:They both also claim that if there are more than 4 partitions on the HDD Win 7 will automatically convert the drives to dynamic.
To clarify this - the HP people are referring to primary partitions - which is the limit for a Basic disk.

Chraz_Ritt
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#12 Post by Chraz_Ritt »

I cannot make more than 4 primary partitions, or 3 primary partitions and 1 extended partition, so then they are being stupid when they warn against going above 4 partitions.

Now I need to get the HP people to tell me what programs and/or processes are using files on the recovery, and HP tools partitions so I can shut them down and delete the partitions without messing up something that's running. The HP expert says that because I have the recovery DVDs I don't need those partitions.

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