Okay, a few facts, gOS only offers the "Guided Resize" option when it finds a clean copy of Windows in the FIRST partition, and there is enough space IN THAT PARTITION to split of enough space for gOS, it ignores any other partitions you may already have made, EXCEPT that when its tries to split it will be inhibited by the fact that there can be no more than four (primary) partitions on a hard-disk. According to your actual system screenshot you already have four partitions on the system.
*1 A 41 MB Fat 16 partition, no idea what it is good for, seems to be for some special windows stuff, maybe a "system restore partition" or a boot menu system. *2 The second partition seems to contain Windows, and is the "C:" partition formatted in ntfs. *3 the third partition. also NTFS, probably "D:" *4 The fourth partition, formated in Fat32 probably the "E:" partition. So what happens is that gOS looks at the first partition (the 41MB Fat16 partition, formatted as a "super floppy"), and decides it doesn't hold a copy of windows, hence no option for a Guided resize! So what to do, now First, I assume (but I am not 100% sure) that gOS actually only needs 1 (one) partition, if for any reason it cannot have 2 (two) partitions, it will settle for just one, an use a swap file, instead of a swap partition, or maybe it will make a secondary partition for the swap file inside its own primary partition. But in any case there are a couple of problems you must overcome: first, there first partition (whatever its contents) must be big enough, so that gOS can split off a part for itself. Second, you must remove (at least) one of the partitions, so gOS has a primary partition for itself. Third, with the "super floppy" partition in place you will never get a "guided resize" option, it is almost as if this setup has been designed to prevent that from happening. There are two courses you can take to make this work: 1) Completely remove the "super floppy partition", so that Windows gets the first partition, and set that partition to be the "active" (or boot) partition. Then you have one partition spare for gOS. or 2) Remove any (or both) of the partitions 3 or 4, increase the size of the "super floppy partition" so it becomes big enough for gOS, then split it off into a new EXT3 partition, format it, and use the manual method. To me option 1 is much more attractive, as you in fact remove an artificial barrier that seems designed to prevent installing another OS. If Windows does no longer boot because you have removed this partition then you -should- be able to restore booting by simply creating a boot sector in what has become the first primary partition, you can do that with the windows install CD, but its possible the boot sector is still intact. Try to find out what the #%^& the first partition does, and why it is there. If gOS gives you the "Guided resize option", FIRST defragment and check the C: partition with the defragmentation system tool, gOS can only split off a partition, if the original partition has clean unused space at the physical end, and gOS will do it much more reliable when there are no errors in the NTFS filing system, running the system tool takes care of both. One course of action you may consider taking is installing WinXP anew, without any strange super floppy boot menu partitions. On 1 feb, 01:24, GeorgeM <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi there, > > I am pretty new to Linux. I spent the last 5 or so hours attempting > to install gOS onto a hard disk with an existing WinXP installation. > I was using the gOS 3.1 Gadgets LiveCD. The system is a typical Dell > cheapo system, with 1 GB of RAM, and a 160 GB hard drive partitioned > loosely as follows: C:/116GB, E:/40GB, F:/3GB. > > I am trying to achieve a dual-boot system. I choose "Manual" as > Therefore, I do not choose "Guided - Use Entire Disk." I do not have > a "Guided - resize" option as shown in this image I found > online:http://f.hatena.ne.jp/elsal/20071102172802 . Instead, I have these > options only (image also just found online): > http://beginlinux.com/images/gos/install/g33.png > . > > So I choose "Manual." My problem is that I cannot get past the part > where you choose a partition to install it. I get this screen (my > actual system > screenshot):http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ysZod8lO__M/SYTpkxapWXI/AAAAAAAAClI/MPHw2Rw... > > From that screen, I cannot choose to create any new partitions. The > existing partitions have data on them, though TONS of unused space. > However, if I attempt to edit existing partititons and reduce the > partition size in order to create "free" or usable "unallocated" space > with which to create a new partition, I end up with completely > unusable and inaccessible "unallocated" space. I have tried creating > new partitions this way through the LiveCD gOS Installer as pictured, > using GParted separately within gOS, and using a free partition > program within WinXP. None of those methods creates usable free > space. > > I then attempted to move all of my data from the E: (40GB) drive and > format it using both the installer, and then GParted after that didn't > work, to Ext3 format. I then designated it as the boot drive within > the installer. If I do that, I get a "no root file system is > defined" error and cannot continue. After some googling, I figured > that was because I needed two partitions--a boot and a swap > partition. However. since no partition program will let me reallocate > unallocated space I can't create any new partitions, so I can't come > up with the necessary partitions. > > What would I love? If there was a "Guided - resize" option like in > the first screenshot above. But there is no option, and I'm too much > of a Linux newbie to overcome these Manual installation problems. > > Can someone point me in the right direction? I'm open even to using a > different Linux distro if need be. But it's important for me to end > up with a dual boot system, and right now every attempt at installing > gOS without doing a full disk format seems to fail. > > Any help would be appreciated... --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gOS Linux" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/goslinux?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
