Good morning!
I am fairly new to Linux and need some help with partitioning the hard drive. I have a HP Pavilion XH485 laptop. I currently run Puppy Unleashed 2.0 live disk. I also have the Puppy Sourcerer 2.0 and Vector Linux 5.1 std disks. The laptop's OS, Window's ME, is apparently gone. The laptop will not start up using the ME OS. A view of the (30G) drive shows 2 partitions. One at about 23G, the other (about 7G) says 'unassigned'. It looks to me as if the entire 30G drive can be partitioned any way I want, since there is no OS on it (and i'm running the Puppy live disk, which boots fine). I want to install my Puppy Unleashed to the hard drive as the main OS, but I need to know what would be the best way to divide the 30G up so that I have enough room for the OS, and spare partitions for whatever I want to do later. I also need to know about disk labeling. Further, I could not figure out what to do with the 'unassigned' partition (i.e.-how do I 'assign' it). Could someone point me in the right direction for partitioning,labeling, and assigning? Thanks!
Paul
How to partition Compaq hard drive for Puppy install?
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Guest
Re: Partitioning stuff
I would do it this way;backpages wrote:Good morning!
I am fairly new to Linux and need some help with partitioning the hard drive. I have a HP Pavilion XH485 laptop. I currently run Puppy Unleashed 2.0 live disk. I also have the Puppy Sourcerer 2.0 and Vector Linux 5.1 std disks. The laptop's OS, Window's ME, is apparently gone. The laptop will not start up using the ME OS. A view of the (30G) drive shows 2 partitions. One at about 23G, the other (about 7G) says 'unassigned'. It looks to me as if the entire 30G drive can be partitioned any way I want, since there is no OS on it (and i'm running the Puppy live disk, which boots fine). I want to install my Puppy Unleashed to the hard drive as the main OS, but I need to know what would be the best way to divide the 30G up so that I have enough room for the OS, and spare partitions for whatever I want to do later. I also need to know about disk labeling. Further, I could not figure out what to do with the 'unassigned' partition (i.e.-how do I 'assign' it). Could someone point me in the right direction for partitioning,labeling, and assigning? Thanks!
Paul
1st part - 256Meg, swap, ........................hd0,0/hda1
2nd part - 2Gig, resier, for puppy, ............hd0,1/hda2
3rd part - rest of hd, reiser, data storage, .hd0,2/hda3
This way when you use the installer, at the end Grub is installed correctly in auto mode on the MBR of HD0 and the Grub files will be in hda2/boot/grub ....
You can always mount hda3 after boot, and store whatever you want on it.
Bob N9LVU
hi and welcome Paul/Backpages.
you might already know this but there is some good info, pointers and tips to be found in the beginner's forum "sticky" of "index of resources for beginner's". it has a section about hard drive installs with links to various forum topic threads. there's a good "raffy's guide to hard drive installs -- the whole enchilada" which altho dated and refering to puppy version 1.04 it is still very good. the info there and in the puppy wiki might answer your questions or at least get you some background until someone gives a specific and knowledgable answer.
ive done 4 installs not counting the flops and mind-changes. usually ive just installed puppy alone to a large drive for simplicity. however like you ive also been wondering about optimal sizes for puppy, swap, and data partitions. my last install was puppy 2.02-seamonkey to a 20G disc for a 450 PII with 328M ram: 500M for puppy, 500M swap (swap size about 1.5 times ram size), and 18+ G for data. one regular poster recommends for puppy linux a swap of less than or equal to ram (swap =< ram) as linux uses swap differently than windows where swap is often 3 times ram size (3x ram). the poster claims more swap reduces efficiency and increases disc wear (disc thrash).
good luck and have fun,
Dru
you might already know this but there is some good info, pointers and tips to be found in the beginner's forum "sticky" of "index of resources for beginner's". it has a section about hard drive installs with links to various forum topic threads. there's a good "raffy's guide to hard drive installs -- the whole enchilada" which altho dated and refering to puppy version 1.04 it is still very good. the info there and in the puppy wiki might answer your questions or at least get you some background until someone gives a specific and knowledgable answer.
ive done 4 installs not counting the flops and mind-changes. usually ive just installed puppy alone to a large drive for simplicity. however like you ive also been wondering about optimal sizes for puppy, swap, and data partitions. my last install was puppy 2.02-seamonkey to a 20G disc for a 450 PII with 328M ram: 500M for puppy, 500M swap (swap size about 1.5 times ram size), and 18+ G for data. one regular poster recommends for puppy linux a swap of less than or equal to ram (swap =< ram) as linux uses swap differently than windows where swap is often 3 times ram size (3x ram). the poster claims more swap reduces efficiency and increases disc wear (disc thrash).
good luck and have fun,
Dru
Last edited by CatmanDru on Wed 20 Sep 2006, 23:24, edited 1 time in total.
The "unassigned" part of your hard drive should be dealt with when you redo the partitioning with Gparted in Puppy.
As to swap memory, it is "virtual RAM" on the hard drive, only used when Puppy runs out of actual RAM. Actual RAM is much faster, so naturally the OS uses it up before starting on virtual RAM. If you have 256MB of RAM it may never be used up, depending on what you use Puppy for. In that case, swap memory on the hd would be wasted. Even so, swap is cheap insurance, and 256, or even 500, MB is not much out of a 20 or 30 GB hd.
As to swap memory, it is "virtual RAM" on the hard drive, only used when Puppy runs out of actual RAM. Actual RAM is much faster, so naturally the OS uses it up before starting on virtual RAM. If you have 256MB of RAM it may never be used up, depending on what you use Puppy for. In that case, swap memory on the hd would be wasted. Even so, swap is cheap insurance, and 256, or even 500, MB is not much out of a 20 or 30 GB hd.
[url=http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69321][color=blue]Puppy Help 101 - an interactive tutorial for Lupu 5.25[/color][/url]
Backpages,
to help others help you, you may wish to provide a bit more info. specifically, processor type and speed, size of ram in your laptop, what you intend to use your laptop for, the application programs you will regularly use, the application programs you may eventually end up using, and any applications or dotpups you may wish to add to puppy. this info may enable other posters to make good educated guesses as to optimal partition sizes for your hard drive.
there are partition tools available thru puppy's start menu: gparted, partition manager (or a similar name) with fdisk (a text command line program) and cfdisk (more of an arrow-moved cursor 'multiple-choice' program). partitioning is like writing on a chalkboard: you can write, erase, write, erase... until you get it the way you want it. and the writing process takes about 5 seconds. so in your case of installing a puppy-only disc, be careful to get the details correct, but dont worry about destroying your computer. it wont be curtains for the free world.
as i understand it, puppy on the cd iso is compressed so its indicated size will expand and require more disc space once installed to the disc. i dont know how much space, nor by what factor it will expand. it would be usefull if that expanded size or at least an expansion factor or ratio was specified for each version. altho puppy is a live-cd it is also hard drive installable and those of us with very old and limited hardware such as 64m ram and 1 or 4x cd-roms often find it optimal to install to an older hard drive.
my advice to you is that you read for background knowledge pending more responses to this post and use or play around with a partitioning program.
and post your failures, successes, and what you've learned so that from your experience the rest of us may also learn. thanx.
CatmanDru
to help others help you, you may wish to provide a bit more info. specifically, processor type and speed, size of ram in your laptop, what you intend to use your laptop for, the application programs you will regularly use, the application programs you may eventually end up using, and any applications or dotpups you may wish to add to puppy. this info may enable other posters to make good educated guesses as to optimal partition sizes for your hard drive.
there are partition tools available thru puppy's start menu: gparted, partition manager (or a similar name) with fdisk (a text command line program) and cfdisk (more of an arrow-moved cursor 'multiple-choice' program). partitioning is like writing on a chalkboard: you can write, erase, write, erase... until you get it the way you want it. and the writing process takes about 5 seconds. so in your case of installing a puppy-only disc, be careful to get the details correct, but dont worry about destroying your computer. it wont be curtains for the free world.
as i understand it, puppy on the cd iso is compressed so its indicated size will expand and require more disc space once installed to the disc. i dont know how much space, nor by what factor it will expand. it would be usefull if that expanded size or at least an expansion factor or ratio was specified for each version. altho puppy is a live-cd it is also hard drive installable and those of us with very old and limited hardware such as 64m ram and 1 or 4x cd-roms often find it optimal to install to an older hard drive.
my advice to you is that you read for background knowledge pending more responses to this post and use or play around with a partitioning program.
and post your failures, successes, and what you've learned so that from your experience the rest of us may also learn. thanx.
CatmanDru
Responses
Good morning! Thanks for the quick responses to my query, and for the info and tips! One thing that I did not mention in my first post, was that while using either gparted or maybe ROX, I came across some disturbing information that may have been related to the hard drive partitions. Unfortunately, I forgot where I was when I came across it. I am going to try to find it again this morning, after which I will return and address some of the info and tips provided.
Paul
Paul
additional info
Greetings!
Another thanks for the responses to my question. Catman Dru has offered several suggestions concerning 'educating' myself using the Forum, and I can hardly disagree. The Forum is a large place with massive amounts of information, which naturally becomes a daunting challenge to find specific information. Catman has however, offered specific places to go, and that will be a real help.
Flash has commented on the 'unassigned' part of the hard drive i'm working on, and I agree. The problem is of course (my problem), I don't know what to do with this 'unassigned' partition to make it 'assigned' (more homework for me).
Catman has returned with additional information designed to help me help you help me (confused yet?). And I agree. However, here is the problem as it relates to this specific computer. This Pavilion was rescued from the trash. Believe it or not, there are people out there who don't want to deal with a problematic computer, and just throw theirs away and get a new one. Anyway, I do not have all the information on this computer, because it will not boot up using the installed Windows ME software that apparently came with it. Having knowledge of Puppy, I merely took a trashed computer and slipped in a live disk, and wah lah, I am connected to the Internet with a usable computer that I know almost nothing about.
What I have done though, is fire it up and take screenshots of information provided by the partition managers of Puppy, etc., of hard disk information that may be relevant to my goal of re-partitioning the drive for a Puppy Unleashed install. I have not yet read through the Forum rules as to whether or not things like screen shots can be posted, but I am more than willing to forward the screen shots to anyone who has an interest. Perhaps someone else can determine if the shots are meaningful and/or helpful to someone else who has the same questions as I.
In conclusion, another pertinent factoid concerning this laptop is: while the boot seems to work just fine, shutting down doesn't. Regardless of which path I choose to shut down, Puppy hangs up and I have to hit the Power switch to quit. Ergo, I loose all information collected during that session. I was however, smart enough (hahaha) to email myself all the screen shots, so they are all safe in my mail server. The barking dog is beginning to grate on my nerves each time I start though.
Another thanks for the responses to my question. Catman Dru has offered several suggestions concerning 'educating' myself using the Forum, and I can hardly disagree. The Forum is a large place with massive amounts of information, which naturally becomes a daunting challenge to find specific information. Catman has however, offered specific places to go, and that will be a real help.
Flash has commented on the 'unassigned' part of the hard drive i'm working on, and I agree. The problem is of course (my problem), I don't know what to do with this 'unassigned' partition to make it 'assigned' (more homework for me).
Catman has returned with additional information designed to help me help you help me (confused yet?). And I agree. However, here is the problem as it relates to this specific computer. This Pavilion was rescued from the trash. Believe it or not, there are people out there who don't want to deal with a problematic computer, and just throw theirs away and get a new one. Anyway, I do not have all the information on this computer, because it will not boot up using the installed Windows ME software that apparently came with it. Having knowledge of Puppy, I merely took a trashed computer and slipped in a live disk, and wah lah, I am connected to the Internet with a usable computer that I know almost nothing about.
What I have done though, is fire it up and take screenshots of information provided by the partition managers of Puppy, etc., of hard disk information that may be relevant to my goal of re-partitioning the drive for a Puppy Unleashed install. I have not yet read through the Forum rules as to whether or not things like screen shots can be posted, but I am more than willing to forward the screen shots to anyone who has an interest. Perhaps someone else can determine if the shots are meaningful and/or helpful to someone else who has the same questions as I.
In conclusion, another pertinent factoid concerning this laptop is: while the boot seems to work just fine, shutting down doesn't. Regardless of which path I choose to shut down, Puppy hangs up and I have to hit the Power switch to quit. Ergo, I loose all information collected during that session. I was however, smart enough (hahaha) to email myself all the screen shots, so they are all safe in my mail server. The barking dog is beginning to grate on my nerves each time I start though.
regarding posting information about your laptop, altho im not familiar with laptops, on desktops basic system information can be viewed when the bios boots (just turn on the computer and watch the screen) even without a hard drive or an operating system. it will show system ram, and maybe processor type, processor speed and video/grafics controler brand and version. if you can see these, then i sugest you write them down. of course when the bios boots you can also press a key and enter bios and CAREFULLY look around but WITHOUT CHANGING ANYTHING and thereby find info about your computer.
i hope this helps you help others to help you help yourself so that you can report your results which may help still others
.
i suspect that the 'unassigned' portion of the HD can/will be resolved by repartitioning or a disk wipe. i suspect that it is reported 'unassigned' because of previous partitioning, filetype designation, formating or some combination of those processes. the 'unassigned' may be that it wasnt partitioned, formated, or, if possible, given a filesytem type. it may be that a quick single partition for the whole disc will remove the 'unassigned' dilema. if you don't wish to research the 'unassigned' designation, then you may wish to just do a single partition to see what the results are. however, depending on further research on the meaning of 'unassigned' you may wish to run checking tools on the disc, especially checking that the disc's magnetic surface is ok. actually this is probably a good, reasuring step to take with any disc.
wow, the Trash Fairy certainly left you a treasure of a laptop. when you get it working this will make a good story to tell. hopefully the Trash Fairy'll soon visit me with a laptop. one person's trash is another person's treasure
CatmanDru
i hope this helps you help others to help you help yourself so that you can report your results which may help still others
.i suspect that the 'unassigned' portion of the HD can/will be resolved by repartitioning or a disk wipe. i suspect that it is reported 'unassigned' because of previous partitioning, filetype designation, formating or some combination of those processes. the 'unassigned' may be that it wasnt partitioned, formated, or, if possible, given a filesytem type. it may be that a quick single partition for the whole disc will remove the 'unassigned' dilema. if you don't wish to research the 'unassigned' designation, then you may wish to just do a single partition to see what the results are. however, depending on further research on the meaning of 'unassigned' you may wish to run checking tools on the disc, especially checking that the disc's magnetic surface is ok. actually this is probably a good, reasuring step to take with any disc.
wow, the Trash Fairy certainly left you a treasure of a laptop. when you get it working this will make a good story to tell. hopefully the Trash Fairy'll soon visit me with a laptop. one person's trash is another person's treasure
CatmanDru
CatmanDru
I have another couple of questions before I actually 'push the button' so to speak;
If I attempt to start up the laptop without having a Puppy liveCD, I am confronted with the message "no filesystem found". This is what causes me to believe that the original owner 'wiped the drive', intentionally or otherwise. I believe that the installed OS, probably WindowsME, no longer exists on the drive.
During one of the first Puppy start-up attempts, the BIOS start-up sequence was changed to CD-ROM first. No other alterations were done on BIOS that I am aware of. When using Puppy, an attempt to 'mount' the main drive results in an error message that the drive can't be mounted. Mounting the CD-ROM drive works fine, as does mounting the floppy drive. I have already in fact, created a 'boot floppy', although it unusable because when exiting, Puppy locks up, failing to create the file that the boot floppy looks for.
Anyway, my question is this; if I decide to use say gpart(ed,ing,?) to partition the main drive, BIOS isn't going to be affected, is it? Does it not lie somewhere else other than the drive I am about to partition? I just don't want to partition the drive with test partitions, only wipe out BIOS!
I have already 'practiced' partitioning the drive using gpart... . I took gpart up to the point of 'pushing the button' to create a partition, just to see how it worked. Everything seemed to be 'normal'.
On creating some test partitions, I am thinking of making several 'test' partitions, following the general line of the first responder to my email above. I want to try creating 'main' partitions, but also some 'extra' ones, like ext2,ext3,reiserfs. Do you see any problems with that approach?
Expect a pm shortly, concerning the 'trash fairy'.
I have another couple of questions before I actually 'push the button' so to speak;
If I attempt to start up the laptop without having a Puppy liveCD, I am confronted with the message "no filesystem found". This is what causes me to believe that the original owner 'wiped the drive', intentionally or otherwise. I believe that the installed OS, probably WindowsME, no longer exists on the drive.
During one of the first Puppy start-up attempts, the BIOS start-up sequence was changed to CD-ROM first. No other alterations were done on BIOS that I am aware of. When using Puppy, an attempt to 'mount' the main drive results in an error message that the drive can't be mounted. Mounting the CD-ROM drive works fine, as does mounting the floppy drive. I have already in fact, created a 'boot floppy', although it unusable because when exiting, Puppy locks up, failing to create the file that the boot floppy looks for.
Anyway, my question is this; if I decide to use say gpart(ed,ing,?) to partition the main drive, BIOS isn't going to be affected, is it? Does it not lie somewhere else other than the drive I am about to partition? I just don't want to partition the drive with test partitions, only wipe out BIOS!
I have already 'practiced' partitioning the drive using gpart... . I took gpart up to the point of 'pushing the button' to create a partition, just to see how it worked. Everything seemed to be 'normal'.
On creating some test partitions, I am thinking of making several 'test' partitions, following the general line of the first responder to my email above. I want to try creating 'main' partitions, but also some 'extra' ones, like ext2,ext3,reiserfs. Do you see any problems with that approach?
Expect a pm shortly, concerning the 'trash fairy'.
some Compaqs definitely have the bios partly on the drive ... if the drive is wiped clean, then the bios may be gone too ... it will still boot, it would be hard to change the bios settings though ... the bios program can be reinstalled to the hard drive
some computers have the Windows system restore program in a hidden partition on the hard drive
i do not know whether your HP has a bios program on it's hard drive or not
some computers have the Windows system restore program in a hidden partition on the hard drive
i do not know whether your HP has a bios program on it's hard drive or not
thanks for the good info. And the plot thickens. wow, Guestoo's comment about the posibility of part of the bios being on the hard drive complicates things. to find out if part of the bios is on the hard drive you could: 1) web research that aspect of your laptop, and/or 2) disconect the hard drive and try booting and see what happens, or 3) some other presently unknown option(s). also, the possibility of any disc stored bios may not survive the next paragraf.
i agree with you that it does seem from the disc's behavior ('no filesystem found' and the error message "cant be mounted") that it might have already been wiped. wiping erases ANY kind of info on the disk including partition information and formatting (and of course any os). wipeing would result in 'no filesytem found' because the disc cant find any filesystem (let alone an os) cuz its been obliterated. finally, if any bios had been stored on that disc, then it probably not there now .
about test partitions, i read somewhere, in the wiki i think, that puppy only 'sees' 9 partitions: one with the current running os, and 8 others. this also explains puppy's inability to see all the partitions (12?) i made on my ME 120gb HD while im running off my puppy HD. i made many partitions for future plans that have since changed. so my suggestion for now is don't exceed 9 partitions
good luck. CatmanDru
i agree with you that it does seem from the disc's behavior ('no filesystem found' and the error message "cant be mounted") that it might have already been wiped. wiping erases ANY kind of info on the disk including partition information and formatting (and of course any os). wipeing would result in 'no filesytem found' because the disc cant find any filesystem (let alone an os) cuz its been obliterated. finally, if any bios had been stored on that disc, then it probably not there now
.about test partitions, i read somewhere, in the wiki i think, that puppy only 'sees' 9 partitions: one with the current running os, and 8 others. this also explains puppy's inability to see all the partitions (12?) i made on my ME 120gb HD while im running off my puppy HD. i made many partitions for future plans that have since changed. so my suggestion for now is don't exceed 9 partitions
good luck. CatmanDru
Let's not jump to conclusions, but a BIOS on the hard drive is almost certainly in some nonstandard (proprietary?) filesystem format. Perhaps, if Puppy doesn't see a filesystem it recognizes, it says there is on filesystem found. Certainly it can't mount a filesystem it doesn't recognize.
I think you might be able to use the "dd" command to see what's on the hd, but it will be raw data, straight off the platter
I think you might be able to use the "dd" command to see what's on the hd, but it will be raw data, straight off the platter
your HP probably does not have the bios on the hard drive, but some older Compaqs do, for example
it's a small non-dos partition, about 1 meg i think ... it should show up in a fdisk list of partitions, but no, it can't be mounted as a file system
the machine will boot, but the bios settings can't be changed
it's a small non-dos partition, about 1 meg i think ... it should show up in a fdisk list of partitions, but no, it can't be mounted as a file system
the machine will boot, but the bios settings can't be changed
Flash and Guestoo's posts add to something i was pondering while snacking. if the disk was wiped intentionally, then there wouldnt be anything to show up as 'unassigned'. if the disc was erased but the 'unassigned' part was intentionally left, then it would show up. i don't know what would be the result if the disc was 'virally' erased. so maybe it wasnt wiped.
maybe the unassigned part is just a portion of the disc that lacks a partition and or formatting, for whatever reason.
i wonder if the unassigned part is seen as a partition, with definite parameters of size, starting, and ending, but just the file type is 'unassigned'. you mentioned you took screen shots. im not sure about the policy of screen shots but ive seen many posted by very frequent 'master' posters. they arent excessive nor unecessary and are used as tools for communicating whats actually occuring in some situation or to share the developement of the gui's. so maybe it might be a good idea for you to actually post your screenshots of your partition tools.
[edit] also, if its true that with a disc-saved bios the computer will boot even without the disc-saved bios but will not save changes without the disc, then MAYBE you could determine or verify if the laptop has a disc-saved bios by 1) disconecting the HD, 2) boot bios, 3) change bios and save changes, 4) reboot bios and see if your changes were indeed saved. if saved, then your bios is independent of the disc. yeah, you're probably not eager to pull apart a working laptop. ive read some laptop HD's remove relatively easily.
[edit] with regard to experimenting with different filesystem, since youll probably have plenty of space, i think a mix of ext2, ext3, and reiser would provide a good, varied playground, especially since different linuxes need different filesystems. if you want to change them later, you can. in the future i would like to play with several of the mini linuxes such as BL1, BL2, BL3, DSL, to get an idea of which would be best for certain specific uses on very limited hardware.
maybe the unassigned part is just a portion of the disc that lacks a partition and or formatting, for whatever reason.
i wonder if the unassigned part is seen as a partition, with definite parameters of size, starting, and ending, but just the file type is 'unassigned'. you mentioned you took screen shots. im not sure about the policy of screen shots but ive seen many posted by very frequent 'master' posters. they arent excessive nor unecessary and are used as tools for communicating whats actually occuring in some situation or to share the developement of the gui's. so maybe it might be a good idea for you to actually post your screenshots of your partition tools.
[edit] also, if its true that with a disc-saved bios the computer will boot even without the disc-saved bios but will not save changes without the disc, then MAYBE you could determine or verify if the laptop has a disc-saved bios by 1) disconecting the HD, 2) boot bios, 3) change bios and save changes, 4) reboot bios and see if your changes were indeed saved. if saved, then your bios is independent of the disc. yeah, you're probably not eager to pull apart a working laptop
. ive read some laptop HD's remove relatively easily.[edit] with regard to experimenting with different filesystem, since youll probably have plenty of space, i think a mix of ext2, ext3, and reiser would provide a good, varied playground, especially since different linuxes need different filesystems. if you want to change them later, you can. in the future i would like to play with several of the mini linuxes such as BL1, BL2, BL3, DSL, to get an idea of which would be best for certain specific uses on very limited hardware.
Good morning!
Last nights reading included pertinant parts of the book 'Linux for Dummies' (3rd ed). Found on pg. 75, re BIOS, is this: "The BIOS is a special chip on your machine's motherboard that stores information about your hardware and tests to make sure everything is there and working properly at boot time." Since the author didn't specify a particular machine, I must assume that the 'chip' is a standard hardware layout. Would not the author have mentioned an 'exception' where BIOS was split between the 'chip' and the HD? I would think he would (but i'm not an authority on this). And, GuestToo's statement is "some Compaqs definitely", so my presumption is that he has access to information the author did not. The only thing I can think of at this point is that 'if' the main partition of the drive was 'wiped', and the BIOS remains (and has some funtionality because i've already altered the startup order), then the BIOS, or the most important part of it, resides on the 'chip'.
I am not familiar with the 'dd' command (remember, i'm 'relatively' new to Linux), but I will find out, however, raw data resulting from that command would be meaningless to me at this point.
Catman's mention of the 'unassigned' section being a physical partition, I believe it is. When viewing the HD, size dimensions are given. The first or 'main' partition shows about 23 G, and the 'unassigned' showing about 7 G. So the 30G drive is currently partitioned into two physical blocks (it appears).
Yesterday, while examing what information was available, I did notice that there was an available option to 'verify' (something), but that it would take a long time. I assume it meant 'verify' the HD for errors. I may try that today.
Re; the screenshots, I will follow the above directions and see if I can post one or two of the most relevant and descriptive shots, in a little while. They are currently in .png format, but I will change them over to jpeg.
Do I need to concern myself with 'disk labeling' before I commence with partitioning?
Last nights reading included pertinant parts of the book 'Linux for Dummies' (3rd ed). Found on pg. 75, re BIOS, is this: "The BIOS is a special chip on your machine's motherboard that stores information about your hardware and tests to make sure everything is there and working properly at boot time." Since the author didn't specify a particular machine, I must assume that the 'chip' is a standard hardware layout. Would not the author have mentioned an 'exception' where BIOS was split between the 'chip' and the HD? I would think he would (but i'm not an authority on this). And, GuestToo's statement is "some Compaqs definitely", so my presumption is that he has access to information the author did not. The only thing I can think of at this point is that 'if' the main partition of the drive was 'wiped', and the BIOS remains (and has some funtionality because i've already altered the startup order), then the BIOS, or the most important part of it, resides on the 'chip'.
I am not familiar with the 'dd' command (remember, i'm 'relatively' new to Linux), but I will find out, however, raw data resulting from that command would be meaningless to me at this point.
Catman's mention of the 'unassigned' section being a physical partition, I believe it is. When viewing the HD, size dimensions are given. The first or 'main' partition shows about 23 G, and the 'unassigned' showing about 7 G. So the 30G drive is currently partitioned into two physical blocks (it appears).
Yesterday, while examing what information was available, I did notice that there was an available option to 'verify' (something), but that it would take a long time. I assume it meant 'verify' the HD for errors. I may try that today.
Re; the screenshots, I will follow the above directions and see if I can post one or two of the most relevant and descriptive shots, in a little while. They are currently in .png format, but I will change them over to jpeg.
Do I need to concern myself with 'disk labeling' before I commence with partitioning?
just the internet and Google, and a little experience with a Compaq notebook (not my machine)GuestToo's statement is "some Compaqs definitely", so my presumption is that he has access to information the author did not
Unable to format hard disk
Recovering the Operating System and ApplicationsDate: August 29, 2006
If you deleted the partitions on the Hard drive you have deleted the BIOS partition that Compaq put's on the hard drive.
You will need to go to HP and download the program to install the BIOS back onto the hard drive ...
Compaq's bios is on both the hard drive and bios chip. The hard drive part is needed. As JPW said, if the hard portion is not there, you need to go to the Compaq site for a utility to restore it.
Use the Recovery CD to reinstall the original factory software on the notebook
hi everyone.
i just wanted to underscore an observation about the mystery/bios partition's size. Backpage's disc's 'unassigned' partition is 7Gb (Gigabytes) while Guestto's quoted source described an 8 or 24 byte partition *. 7Gigabytes versus 8 or 24 bytes is a big discreptancy. it seems unlikely and somewhat inefficient that the bios changes would need a 7Gb partition
.
another thing i noticed is that Backpages' partition is called 'UNASSIGNED' as opposed to 'non-dos/UNKOWN' for the bios quote. this may only be a matter of different words for the same thing. or it may be a matter of clearly defined terms refering to specific and distinct attributes of partitions. except for the 'non-dos', i dont know.
perhaps doing research regarding the bios and if possible downloading the manual or any documents regarding your exact laptop model in the long run would save you time, headaches, hassles, and maybe even money. when you get the laptop running, youll probably really want to have the actual manual -- might as well get it now. however, im in no way suggesting that you 'go away and do your own work'. on the contrary, please continue to post your questions & keep us posted. i, for one, am learning something.
regarding disc labeling, i dont know. ive done disc labels for 'windows' discs (hard and floppy), and three (?) times using a maxtor disc utility, but ive never seen it YET in linux. it may just be a dos-windows thing or i may still be too ignorant to know better. i hope someone out there knows. however, i think that in windows/dos you could change the disc label basically any time -- even after formatting and partitioning. to the best of my knowledge the label simply serves as a 'name tag' to help you identify and keep track of your discs. thats what i used them for because i never get confused about my discs .
happy tinkering. CatmanDru.
p.s. ive never even touched, literally, a laptop-notebook .
* Guesttoo quoted from a source: "SP8126 creates 3 disks that are used for both Compaq 2000 and 4000 series to create the F10 CMOS/BIOS partition. ... During FDISK you will see that an 8 or 24 byte non-Dos /unknown partition exists. This is the special Compaq Boot partition you just created."
i just wanted to underscore an observation about the mystery/bios partition's size. Backpage's disc's 'unassigned' partition is 7Gb (Gigabytes) while Guestto's quoted source described an 8 or 24 byte partition *. 7Gigabytes versus 8 or 24 bytes is a big discreptancy. it seems unlikely and somewhat inefficient that the bios changes would need a 7Gb partition
.another thing i noticed is that Backpages' partition is called 'UNASSIGNED' as opposed to 'non-dos/UNKOWN' for the bios quote. this may only be a matter of different words for the same thing. or it may be a matter of clearly defined terms refering to specific and distinct attributes of partitions. except for the 'non-dos', i dont know.
perhaps doing research regarding the bios and if possible downloading the manual or any documents regarding your exact laptop model in the long run would save you time, headaches, hassles, and maybe even money. when you get the laptop running, youll probably really want to have the actual manual -- might as well get it now. however, im in no way suggesting that you 'go away and do your own work'. on the contrary, please continue to post your questions & keep us posted. i, for one, am learning something.
regarding disc labeling, i dont know. ive done disc labels for 'windows' discs (hard and floppy), and three (?) times using a maxtor disc utility, but ive never seen it YET in linux. it may just be a dos-windows thing or i may still be too ignorant to know better. i hope someone out there knows. however, i think that in windows/dos you could change the disc label basically any time -- even after formatting and partitioning. to the best of my knowledge the label simply serves as a 'name tag' to help you identify and keep track of your discs. thats what i used them for because i never get confused about my discs
.happy tinkering. CatmanDru.
p.s. ive never even touched, literally, a laptop-notebook
. * Guesttoo quoted from a source: "SP8126 creates 3 disks that are used for both Compaq 2000 and 4000 series to create the F10 CMOS/BIOS partition. ... During FDISK you will see that an 8 or 24 byte non-Dos /unknown partition exists. This is the special Compaq Boot partition you just created."
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marksouth2000
- Posts: 622
- Joined: Wed 05 Apr 2006, 20:43
I occasionaly working on HP's. They do put a hidden recovery partition, at least for winXP and I assume the other OS's as well.
The size sounds right for a HP back-up.
There may be a key (F-1 or F-8 on yours, possibly) that will put you into the HP recovery mode, where you could restore the original installation of windows, assuming the partition hasn't been wiped out, You could look at how much space is used on that partition, to get a clue about that.
If you have no intention of replacing Windows any time soon and you want it all straightened out, you can just floppy boot it, Fdisk /mbr, use fdisk to delete all partitions, use fdisk to create one or more new ext partitions and a swap.
I'd reccomend a swap (although you don't need it just for Puppy, with the ram you've got) it may come in handy later and you have way more space than you need.
As to your original question about optimal way to partition;
I don't believe that it makes much difference (for normal operation) with Puppy, when you have more than 128Mb of ram and an equal size of swap.
This may be different if doing certain development tasks, I don't know.
I can tell you from experience though, that on any machine I've tried (lots) with more than 128 Mb of Ram and an equivalent swap, that I have seen no noticeable difference in the operation of any version of Puppy, or any of the included apps that I have used, regardless of the ext 2/3 etc., partitioning scheme used. Based on these experiences, my opinion is, that if there's a difference in benchmark speeds, it is so negligable that it's not worth doing tests to see. The only thing that shows a difference on these Ram equal systems, is the cpu speed.
The combination of keys to access the bios, varies from machine to machine.
For Pavilion models, I believe you should power on the system while holding the F10 key, keep pressing it repeatedly every second or so until it lets you in.
They (HP/Compaq) say you only need to press it once when a certain cursor/message/etc appears at top right or bottom left of screen (depending on machine), but their suggestion doesn't always work for me.
As pointed out by Mark,
Hope this helps
The size sounds right for a HP back-up.
There may be a key (F-1 or F-8 on yours, possibly) that will put you into the HP recovery mode, where you could restore the original installation of windows, assuming the partition hasn't been wiped out, You could look at how much space is used on that partition, to get a clue about that.
If you have no intention of replacing Windows any time soon and you want it all straightened out, you can just floppy boot it, Fdisk /mbr, use fdisk to delete all partitions, use fdisk to create one or more new ext partitions and a swap.
I'd reccomend a swap (although you don't need it just for Puppy, with the ram you've got) it may come in handy later and you have way more space than you need.
As to your original question about optimal way to partition;
I don't believe that it makes much difference (for normal operation) with Puppy, when you have more than 128Mb of ram and an equal size of swap.
This may be different if doing certain development tasks, I don't know.
I can tell you from experience though, that on any machine I've tried (lots) with more than 128 Mb of Ram and an equivalent swap, that I have seen no noticeable difference in the operation of any version of Puppy, or any of the included apps that I have used, regardless of the ext 2/3 etc., partitioning scheme used. Based on these experiences, my opinion is, that if there's a difference in benchmark speeds, it is so negligable that it's not worth doing tests to see. The only thing that shows a difference on these Ram equal systems, is the cpu speed.
The combination of keys to access the bios, varies from machine to machine.
For Pavilion models, I believe you should power on the system while holding the F10 key, keep pressing it repeatedly every second or so until it lets you in.
They (HP/Compaq) say you only need to press it once when a certain cursor/message/etc appears at top right or bottom left of screen (depending on machine), but their suggestion doesn't always work for me.
As pointed out by Mark,
This is true on HP's recent machines, as they all came stock, with such a setup.Seven Gb is almost certainly a Windows Recovery partition. Unless one wants Windows Me back (shudder at the thought) it's safe to remove.
Hope this helps
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