How to partition an old HDD with GParted?

[rcrsn51]

I'm assume the XP partition went to the flash drive. Need to check that.

That doesn't make any sense.

The files that made up your XP install are still somewhere on sda. But you appear to have made a new 1 GB ext2 partition on sda. In that case, you have blown away the start of your XP install.

The chances of recovering it are slim to none.

[coldmonday]

rcrsn51,

You are correct, but it doesn't matter as I am going to clean the flash drive anyway; to give me an empty flash drive to use.

The XP will not be needed on the Linux machine.

So I have Puppy running on the Linux machine from the CD,

I'm in GParted. My hard drive is a SCSI

and it shows I have /dev/sda (149.06 GiB)


Which I take is my hard drive using only one partition and a total capacity of 149.05 GigaByte.

Further information shown is that I have

/dev/sda1 with ext2 and a size of 3.91 GigaByte. using 59.46 MB.

Also an unallocated partition of 145.14 GigaByte.

Nothing else yet.

coldmonday.

More following.

[coldmonday]

Removed text. Worked out the problem.

[bigpup]

So, what did you do?????

[davids45]

G'day coldmonday,

If I remember correctly, adding partitions into an extended (primary) partition requires they be 'logical' partitions.
So you need to set Gparted to create logical not primary partitions (only four primaries allowed). There's a box to select the type of partition you want to make during the process.

You could also make a small Linux-swap partition (say, twice the size of your RAM) amongst your new logical partitions while you're playing around with Gparted.

The MS-originated limit is 15 partitions per hard-drive - if you want to go to extremes, that's 4 primaries, one of which is extended and can have 14 logical partitions within it.

Have fun.

David S.

[coldmonday]

bigpup, davids45,

I was following along with the Dedoinedo tutorial.

I got to the point where it told you how to create an extended partition, but there things became a bit ambiguous.

He tells you how to create the extended partition and then proceeds to suggest creating two logical partitions to go in it.

I had no problem with the concept.

But, then he says something along the line of 'but these won't work until you click apply' (I don't have the Gparted running at the moment. I have had to change machines)

It gives the impression that he was going to 'apply' both the extended and the two logical drives at the same time.

However, as you guys probably know, once you fill out the boxes to create the extended partition you can't click on 'new' to make any more.

You have to 'apply' the extended partition to make it viable, THEN highlight it and proceed to create the other logical partitions within it.

It seems obvious. But the wording threw me.

Once I worked it out the rest was easy.

At the moment I am working on a bit of hardware so I'm taking a couple of days away from Linux.

But I feel I'm starting to get the gist of it.

coldmonday.

[bigpup]

See if I can help clear the confusion.
Partition basics:
On a hard drive /storage device.
Can have up to 4 primary partitions.
Or 1 to 3 primary and one extended partition.
The extended partition can be divided into any number of logical partitions.

The extended partition is a special partition that can be further divided into usable logical partitions.
No restriction on number of logical partitions.
The logical partitions make the space in the extended partition usable to the file system.

For Puppy installs.
All you need to do is make one primary partition.
Using Gparted.
Delete all partitions on the drive.
Now make one primary partition, using all the unallocated space, and format it.
I suggest formatting it ext 3.
Flag it boot.

Install Puppy.
Install the Grub4dos Boot loader.

Remove any CD with Puppy on it.
Boot the computer to the Grub4dos boot menu and select the Puppy you installed.

[coldmonday]

bigpup,

I shall follow those instructions to the letter; but not tonight. I'm up to my elbows in 741 op-amps at the moment.

As an aside,

Yesterday I called in to our local library and inquired about books on Linux.

As Linux is supposed to be taking over the World, and libraries are known to be dens of subversion inhabited by radical free thinkers.

But the nice lady behind the desk told me they had nothing. 'We did have two copies of 'Linux for Dummies', but they were withdrawn.'

I offered my commiserations and scuttled out before she picked up the phone and had me whisked of to a Bill and Melinda Gulag where I would be forced to learn Windows 10.

On the way out I did notice the ever increasing rack of Manga magazines.

And some don't believe the world is dumming down.

coldmonday.

[coldmonday]

bigpup,

It worked. Many thanks for your assistance.

I now have one huge 149.05 gigabyte bootable primary drive that answers to /dev/sda1 formatted ext3.


I now intend to download LinAXE.

This was the whole point of me going over to Linux in the first place.

coldmonday.

[coldmonday]

I came to fire up the Linux machine today and it Crashed on boot-up.

It went ok to

Loading the Lupo_528.sfs man file Done

Then....

Setting up layered file system Fail

Some more lines then....

Kernal Panic.



I can boot from the CD.

Is it possible to do a 'repair' from the CD or do I have to clear it off the drive and re-install from the CD ?

[davids45]

G'day coldmonday,

How long ago was your previous Linux boot-up (last one that didn't panic)? Did it shut down without problem?

Could you post your menu.lst text file to show us your boot process - which looks like the problem, if it's not hardware related? Kernel panics can be failure to find a particular file during start-up due to a menu.lst issue.

Running the Live-CD (Lupu?) means you could do a file check with fsck of the Puppy partition, if nothing seems wrong in the menu.lst area.

If you have a Frugal Pup, that's the one with several fixed files and the constantly varying/growing save-file that stores everything added or changed when running Puppy, then a data rescue (i.e. of your save-file) is likely. A repair of the (fixed) system files from the CD means just copying them again from the CD to the Puppy sub-folder. But why any of these static files has changed is a cause for concern.

If it was a Full Lupu install, then that's more of a problem with everything mixed together, compared to the more modular Frugal. No simple fix for a borked Full, just delete the Puppy sub-directory and re-install via the Universal installer from the CD. And I recommend you do a Frugal, not a Full.

Lupu is getting pretty old so maybe try a newer Pup if you want to ever add newer packages. If your hard-drive has 150GB, that's enough for dozens of Pups (Frugals). If you want Fulls, then you need to format more partitions, one per Full Pup.

Good luck in hunting for the problem,

David S.

[bigpup]

I came to fire up the Linux machine today and it Crashed on boot-up.

It went ok to

Loading the Lupo_528.sfs man file Done

Then....

Setting up layered file system Fail

Some more lines then....

Kernal Panic.



I can boot from the CD.

Is it possible to do a 'repair' from the CD or do I have to clear it off the drive and re-install from the CD ?

I love computers!
That is why I keep mine in a room with no windows!

Did this do the same thing after several times trying to boot up?
Sometimes the boot process just does not work the first time.
This was a boot-up from a cold un-powered condition?

[coldmonday]

Bigpup,

..This was a boot-up from a cold un-powered condition?..

Yes, sure was.

I'm just passing through at the moment. I'll give it another try tomorrow.

Davids45,

Also thanks for the tips.

As there is nothing on the drive except puppy and no other files saved to it yet I may just remove it and re-install.

First I'll start up the machine and let it run for half an hour before attempting a boot-up.

I'll report back.

Dave.

[coldmonday]

No, didn't work.

So I'll clean it off and re-install.

By the way, which CD burner would you guys recommend ?

Dave.

[coldmonday]

Well, Got it working again.

Deleted everything, re-installed. And after a lot of head scratching (I forgot a step) I'm now back to where I was a month ago.

Two things left to do.

Open up a working directory. I'm told, and it makes sense, that only people with a death wish work directly from the root directory.

And connect up my LAN.

Let's hope it doesn't crash again.

Dave.

[greengeek]

...Open up a working directory. I'm told, and it makes sense, that only people with a death wish work directly from the root directory..

Nothing wrong with working from the /root directory. In fact it is a perfect place to work from.

Just be sure that you ALWAYS choose where you want to save your files.

Save them ALWAYS to an external disk.

Never trust any directory (including root or home) to automatically make your files safe.

As long as you put your files exactly where you want them to be stored - and back up ALL of the ones you consider important you will be fine working from root.

Just my 2c worth.

[coldmonday]

Greengeek,

Thanks, agreed, probably the safest way to store files.

My point about working in the root directory is that if you screw up badly you can crash the whole system. Where if you screw up in a sub-directory you are not likely to cause as much damage, and recovery should be easier.

Dave.

[greengeek]

My point about working in the root directory is that if you screw up badly you can crash the whole system. Where if you screw up in a sub-directory you are not likely to cause as much damage, and recovery should be easier..

I could be wrong, but I think you are referring to user privileges - ie: if signed in as root you have sufficient permissions to delete every file (system or user...) but if not signed in as root (and just signed in as a low level user) you don't have sufficient privileges to delete important system files. Is that what you mean?

Or do you definitely think there is an issue with using the /root directory?

cheers!

[coldmonday]

Greengeek,

Yes, exactly that.

An analogy being if I want to mess about with some dangerous or flammable substance I will do it out in the shed.
Then if things don't go as planned I still have a home to return to.

And I'm connected to the net via my LAN. No problem with the connection.
Now I can down load LinaxePad and start on my Pic programming. Which was the whole point in this exercise.

Dave.

[bigpup]

First, do not go by what people say about other Linux OS.
Puppy is Puppy Linux and does things the Puppy way and for good reasons!!

If you did a frugal install of Puppy version.
It uses a save file or folder to store any changes or added stuff.
The core operating system files/programs stay read only.
However, stuff in the save can modify how they run and load into memory.

When everything is working correctly.
If you make a simple copy of the save.
That is a good backup.
If something goes very wrong.
Simply replace the save with your save copy, reboot, and everything is back to normal.

I usually add bak. to the beginning of the name of the save copy to keep it from being seen at boot up.
To make it a working save, simply remove bak. from the name.

Add new stuff you want to keep.
Make a new copy of the save.

The big deal about running as root is on systems that you have multiple users. You want to restrict what they can do.
Keeps the dumb people from making changes to the system that break it and give tec support problems to solve all the time. However, these dumb people do not do anything but run a program. They only need to be able to do only that.

It takes someone running as root to add, remove programs, and make system changes.
That is always going to be you, so just run as root all the time.

Puppy is a one user system.
You want that user to be able to do it all.

The only option to restrict what can be done is to run a program as spot.
The idea of spot was to limit what Internet programs can do.
Web browsers specifically.

About root, spot and fido
http://www.puppylinux.org/wikka/spot?redirect=no
Fido was an idea still in testing and development, so it may or may not be offered in the Puppy version you have.
My limited use of it was, why am I using this?