Tag Archives: partitions

How do I install Linux on a dell notebook/laptop that is currently running Windows XP?

Posted on March 1, 2012 by admin| 2 Comments

I’ve been running windows xp alone on my notebook for the last two years. I know almost nothing about linux but I want to give it a shot. I downloaded the unbuntu live cd and used gparted to create two partitions on the hard drive. (there are two other tiny partitions on the hard drive that linux lists but windows doesn’t).

Currently the two smaller (hidden) partitions are formatted FAT and FAT32, the two larger partitions are both formatted NTFS.

What do I need to do to install ubuntu, or any other gnu/linux distro onto one of the partitions, without effecting windows on the other partition? Will I also need to install an additional boot manager?
thanks I d I realized that my problem was just that I should have left one partition unformatted until I installed ubuntu. I deleted the empty partition and used “guided install (largest available free space)” to install ubuntu, worked well, simple and automatic…now if I can just get my network card to work.

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Which is the smallest Linux distro which can read ntfs partitions?

Posted on January 10, 2012 by admin| 2 Comments

I need to recover some files from my windows installation using a linux live cd. I have some imp documents in c: which i need to copy into a pen drive. Which will be the most suitable linux for this purpose?

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Did I install DSL (Damn Small Linux) Correctly? =S?

Posted on December 12, 2011 by admin| 1 Comment

I have always been a mac guy but lately have been messing around with the command line and also learning how to program in Ruby. Today, I decided to install Damn Small Linux on my old computer in the garage. So I popped in the live cd, tested it out, then decided to do a hard drive install. I restarted, typed “install” at the command prompt then a list of options popped up. I went into cfdisk and deleted the windows partition (so there was my entire harddisk space free–no other partitions.) Then I clicked Create and clicked Primary and it asked how much space I wanted to use–I put half the total amount. Then I clicked create again and this time I clicked (I think it was called secondary or something like that??) and made the space the rest of the space I had left…this is the part that confused me. I wasn’t sure if I should have just made one primary linux partition or the two. Then it asked me if I wanted to install a boot loader (I guessed and said yes.) Did I do it right?
Oh, and after creating the two partitions I wrote them both to the disk, then said yes to installing Grub boot loader. Do I need a boot loader if only running DSL and no other OS? I also created two users, 1 root and 2 dsl–and gave them different passwords. Lastly, if I want to save a file to the desktop, it says there is no “Desktop” directory, so where do I save it to? On my mac I save my program files in a folder titled, “programs” then open the terminal and type: cd Desktop/programs
then type: ruby filename.rb
and it runs. How do I do this on DSL or linux in general?

Thanks!!

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How do I clone a drive to a partition on a bigger drive?

Posted on November 29, 2011 by admin| 2 Comments

I had an old 60 gig drive with c and d partitions. got a sweet deal on a new 250 gig drive, copied the d partition over and expanded the c to fill the 60 gig. Did all this with gparted, which is a linux-based live cd with the gparted program on it.

Now I’ve decided I want to run windows of the faster new drive, so I shrunk the existing partition on the new drive, and created a 70 gig partition at the beginning. used gparted to copy the entire c (60 gig) drive to this partition.

1 hour later… ok it copies, so I take out the 60 gig, set the jumper to master on the 250, fire it up and….

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
system32hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

grr. fine. plug in the old 60 gig again, go into windows. copy hal.dll over manually. No luck, same message.

google around the past few days and my brain is aching.

norton ghost seems like an option but costs money…

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Writing Partitions on Linux?

Posted on April 27, 2011 by admin| 1 Comment

I’m Using Knoppix Linux and i want to write partitions on my A Data 2 Gb flash drive so that i can have a live cd on that drive. It is in FAT 32 format and the CFDISK program wont let me write partitions because it says Fatal Error: Bad primary Partition 0. Partition Begins with end-of-disk. My ultimate goal is to have linux on a pendrive to boot to other computers and the instructions i got tell me to write partitions.

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