Install Mint on HD with XP Already?

[captain_juno]

If I already have Windows XP installed on my drive without partitioning, can I still install mint somehow without having to clean my hd?

[captain_juno]

Would I have to repartition my drive or does the Mint installer do that for me?

[proxima_centauri]

I believe you can partition and resize your drive directly from the installer, just choose manual partition option. Additionally you can select "Partition Editor" in Administration in the Darnya menu before you install if you prefer to use it.

[exploder]

captain_juno, is looking for step by step instructions so that he will not have any problems with his XP install. Can someone please guide him through this?

I pointed captain_juno to LinuxMint when he had problems with Ubuntu not running from the Live CD.

[Fred]

captain_juno,

Greetings,

The first thing I would do is defrag your windows install. This will help insure that when you resize the partition you will be less likely to loose data. You need to understand that it can't be guaranteed that you won't corrupt your windows install when you resize the partition. With that in mind I would back up any data that you absolutely can't afford to loose.

Having said that, It can be resized without a lot of risk. People do it every day without problems, but a warning is still in order.

Does the live Mint 4 cd work ok for you? How many hard drives do you have installed and how are they currently partitioned? How much ram do you have installed?

When you are ready to move on, post back.

Enjoy,

Fred

[captain_juno]

Linux Mint works fine for me in the safe graphics mode but never did in the regular startup. I just have one hard drive (80gb) with one partition and XP on it. I also have a gig of ram. I'm going to do a good defrag on the hard drive. And, thanks for your help. This community seems very welcoming and helpful.

[Fred]

Defraging will probably take you a few min.

Unfortunately, the lunch that I didn't have is all used up so I am going to go get some dinner. I will be back in a little while. If you are ready to move on before I get back I am sure someone else will jump in. If not I'll help when I get back. It really isn't difficult if you just take your time and think through what you are doing.

You might want to read through a how-to on using gparted before you start. Google it and you will find more than you really want to know. lol

Fred

[captain_juno]

Oh yeah I know it will take a while. I'll need to backup some things when it's done, too. I'll research gparted some but I did read through the user guide from Linux Mint that says some things about it but my installer wasn't acting like the guide said it would (about being able to edit the partitions). I'll post back here when I'm ready to move on.

[OU812]

Not to confuse the issue, but I have read that it is a good idea to run scandisk as well as defragging before installing linux.

john

[captain_juno]

I cleaned up my comp not too long ago and I just did a defrag along with a little backup. What should my next step be, Fred?

[Fred]

Sorry I took so long.

Ok lets see if we can get a good boot on the Live cd. When the boot screen comes up type " noacpi " without the quotes, as a boot option and then boot. Lets see if that fixes the safe mode problem you had. If it boots ok poke around and make sure everything seems to be working ok.

Fred

[Fred]

OU812

I would agree with you, but hopefully in this case, since he has a good working windows install and we are going to repartition and format anyway, I was going to try to get away without doing that. Plus, I just don't have much faith in scan disk, windows style. My prejudice I guess.

Fred

[Fred]

A couple other things you might want to think about and make a note of before we actually partition and install.

Roughly how much space is being used by the windows install? How much more space do you think you might use with additional programs and data, at least in the short term? Windows, if memory serves, does not like a full disk. This may have changed and I hope someone will correct me if this is no longer correct, but when windows gets to about 80% of the available space it gets really s-l-o-w. So you want to make sure you leave enough room in the windows partition to accommodate the amount of space you will need plus about 20% minimum.

Fred

[Fred]

OK,

I am going to assume everything is ok and you are ready to install. If you want to have an insurance policy, Google for Supergrub. Download and burn that iso to a cd. If worse comes to worse and you can't boot at all, you can always use the Supergrub disk to get back into windows or the Mint 4 install to fix it.

Now, I want you to go to this url:

http://www.howtoforge.com/partitioning_with_gparted

This is a good how-to. You need to read and understand it before we start.

If you are up and running on the live cd, you should see an install icon on the desktop. Click it and off we go!

The first screens are pretty much self explanatory. Work through them until you get to the partitioning/mounting screen. Select the manual partitioning option and ok it.

This will open a gparted screen showing your hard disk and partitions graphically. If you have a computer that had windows pre-installed you may see two partitions. The first partition from the left will be your windows install. The second partition, if you have one, is a recovery partition for windows. These will be primary partitions. You can only have 4 of them on one physical disk so we will use extended partitions too.

First click on the windows partition, the one on the left, and shrink it to the size you had predetermined it needed to be. Do not chose to format it.

The space you have freed up will be what we use to make your linux partitions.

Partitioning in linux is a very contentious issue. If you ask ten different people how to partition a linux system you most likely will get ten different answers. It really depends on what you are going to do with the system mixed in with personal preference.

For a general purpose desktop I think a /boot, / (root), /home, and a swap partition are plenty adequate. In your case I don't see any real need for a /boot partition so we are going to leave that one out, for the sake of simplicity.

Your first new partition will be a primary partition of about 2 Gig. This you should formate as a swap partition.

The next partition will be a primary partition formated ext3. This you will set as your / (root). Depending on how much space you have to play with, you can set it to between 5 and 15 Gig. Anything over 15Gig for a simple desktop is usually just plain wasteful.

Your last new partition will be an extended partition also formated to ext3. This will be your /home partition. Let it use whatever space you have left. This is the partition you will have all your data in so use your own judgment about how small you can let it be. If you need to you can shave a couple Gig. off the / (root) to make more space.

Make sure you have mounted the partitions as I noted. If you have questions or get tangled up, don't commit the changes. Abort the install and come back and ask. It will be much easier to fix a problem now than afterwards.

Continue with the install. When it gives you an oportunity to set a root password, don't. Set just your user name and user password. If all goes well you should have a brand new Mint 4 on a dual boot with xp.

That how-to I pointed you to is your friend.

I know I am not making this as easy as you would like it to be but if you learn how to do this correctly, you will be way ahead of the game. Remember, what you know is easy and what you don't know is always hard. If you go to the trouble to learn it, it will be easy from now on.... I promise.

Enjoy

Fred

[captain_juno]

Man, I appreciate you so much. I completely understand the part about learning it. I've actually picked a bad week to be messing with this stuff too much. I'll be studying this stuff throughout the week and making sure I have what I need backed up (might even break down and get a new hd since 80's been getting small with just one operating system). But, I will post up and tell you how everything's going when I do it. Again, I appreciate your help and don't think it's going to waste because I'm not doing it right away, I just have a lot of homework (damn AP English) that has to be done this week but by the end of the week I'll be golden.

[MagnusB]

The first thing I would do is defrag your windows install.

This is not necessary, it will move fragmented blocks as well, no trouble.
There are two ways of doing this, I recommend use guided partitioning. Just boot the liveCD, follow the installation and select guided and chose the percentage of disk to use (or save, I keep mixing up those). Make sure your Mint root partition is at least 4GB, preferably around 10GB. If you have trouble using this method you could go with GParted and manual partitioning. And backup your personal data BEFORE beginning, there is always a risk of loosing some when resizing a partition and re partitioning your HDD.

[Fred]

MagnusB,

I wouldn't disagree with anything you said. Maybe I am just a bit more conservative on the defrag though.

He is less likely to lose data after a defrag, though the edge may be marginal. He also gets the advantage of a faster windows system, depending on his current fragmentation, when it is all over too.

Like everything else with linux, there are as many ways of getting things done as there are people doing them. Isn't choice grand!

Fred

[captain_juno]

Fred, I booted with the boot option but it does the same thing. It has a lot of green lines, goes black, and, when the mouse is moved, a lot of different colored rectangles are all over the screen. This is as far as I get with a regular live cd boot.

[Fred]

OK,

Go ahead and boot in safe graphics. This problem may take care of itself on installation. If not, we will work with it then.

I won't be able to spend much time with you this evening. Other stuff I need to do, but I will check once in a while. Maybe MagnusB or some one else will jump in if you get in trouble. Sometimes just a word or two will make the light come on.

As long as you don't format your windows partition you can't do a lot of damage. Have at it! lol

Fred

[newW2]

Depending on your hardware this could take a while. Are you letting it run?