HD partition software?

[Neil Hindry]

I wonder if you can help me.

I have a 200GB HD that I want to prepare for Linux. I want to have 5
partitions so that if I want to I can have 5 different distributions of
Linux installed without affecting each other.

I have a few questions that I hope you can help me with regarding doing the
above.

Firstly, am I best formatting the drive as NTFS or FAT?

How do I create the partitions? Can I do it in Win XP Pro?
If I cannot do it in Win XP can I download free software to do this or do I
have to purchase some? Where can I find free software that will create
partitions for me?

I hope you can help.

I appreciate any help or information given.

Thanks!

Neil

 

[Andreas Kaestner]

Neil Hindry (n_nospam_hindry@_nospam_hotmail.com) schrieb/wrote:

I have a 200GB HD that I want to prepare for Linux. I want to have
5 partitions so that if I want to I can have 5 different
distributions of Linux installed without affecting each other.

I have a few questions that I hope you can help me with regarding
doing the above.

Firstly, am I best formatting the drive as NTFS or FAT?

Why not use linux' filesystem ext2fs (or something newer)?

How do I create the partitions? Can I do it in Win XP Pro?

Every linux distro comes along with a partition tool,
usually fdisk. One should use the formatting/partition
tools provided by the operating system.

If I were you, I'd have a look in a linux newsgroup,
alt.comp.linux for example.

 

[Sparky]

I wonder if you can help me.

I have a 200GB HD that I want to prepare for Linux. I want to have 5
partitions so that if I want to I can have 5 different distributions of
Linux installed without affecting each other.

I have a few questions that I hope you can help me with regarding doing the
above.

Firstly, am I best formatting the drive as NTFS or FAT?

Neil;

(I'm assuming this disk is *not* hd0...that is, the 200gb is a second disk?)

I'm running Win2k and either Debian, Ubuntu or Suse on a variety of
systems. I used the free partition managers and boot loaders available
with the linux distos. They were easy enough. However, it is a bit of
a pain in the arse to uninstall when using the Linix *loaders* (lilo or
grub). Therefore, I suggest you figure out how to manage multiple os
boots by using the ntfs boot loader (and editing the boot.ini file).

*nix can read & write FAT and read NTFS (there is a NTFS r/w ability
w/some distos but it's not ready for prime time, imho). But you won't
be using either of these for Linux installs. When installing Linux,
you'll partition and then format using *nix files systems ( ext2, ext3,
etc).

If you want to share data between your Windows & *nix partitions, then
make sure your data is read/written to a FAT(32). If not, you don't
need to worry about fat vs ntfs.

Besides all of this, I'd recommend
-Understand that your query is beyond the scope of our ng
-Check out one of the alt.os.linux.xxxx newsgroups (a.o.l.debian eg)
-Check out http://www.linux.org/lessons/beginner/toc.html

There's one heck of a community out there but it's pretty chaotic so,
keep digging and enjoy.

hth,
-Sparky

 

[Kinoby]

Firstly, am I best formatting the drive as NTFS or FAT?
It doesn't matter. Linux is installed on ext2, ext3, ReiserFS. But
after installation you will be able to mount FAT32 for read/write and
NTFS just for read.

How do I create the partitions?

For management partitions I use Acronis partition software (
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/ ). It can
help you to create ext2, ext3 or ReiserFS partition for Linux
installation.

 

[Conor]

I wonder if you can help me.

I have a 200GB HD that I want to prepare for Linux. I want to have 5
partitions so that if I want to I can have 5 different distributions of
Linux installed without affecting each other.

I have a few questions that I hope you can help me with regarding doing the
above.

Firstly, am I best formatting the drive as NTFS or FAT?

How do I create the partitions? Can I do it in Win XP Pro?
If I cannot do it in Win XP can I download free software to do this or do I
have to purchase some? Where can I find free software that will create
partitions for me?

I hope you can help.

I appreciate any help or information given.

Bootit.

www.bootitng.com

 

[David]

I wonder if you can help me.

I have a 200GB HD that I want to prepare for Linux. I want to have 5
partitions so that if I want to I can have 5 different distributions of
Linux installed without affecting each other.

I have a few questions that I hope you can help me with regarding doing the
above.

Firstly, am I best formatting the drive as NTFS or FAT?
Neither.

How do I create the partitions? Can I do it in Win XP Pro?
If I cannot do it in Win XP can I download free software to do this or do I
have to purchase some? Where can I find free software that will create
partitions for me?

All Linux distributions come with partitioning software and will
format the partitions for you.

 

[Sparky]

Bootit.

www.bootitng.com

Conor;

Interesting looking s/w. I was only able to find Payware versions
though. Any lead on a freeware version?

-Sparky

 

[Mel]

Conor;

Interesting looking s/w. I was only able to find Payware versions
though. Any lead on a freeware version?

-Sparky

LOL! $ware...