Trying to install Linux on a Win XP machine

From: Andrew Levin (nykfan11-spam.me.not_at_optonline.net)
Date: 09/18/05 

Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005 22:20:00 -0400

Hello,

Here is a post that I made to comp.os.linux.setup, which brought no replies.
If anyone here is able to help me, that would be good, otherwise I will have
to run windows for the forseeable future. Thanks in advance.

======================================

Hello,

I have been trying to install Linux (specifically, Slackware 9.1 and 10.1)
on my new HP Windows XP machine, however, I have run into some problems.

I have 80 GB of hard drive space, and, knowing I have a 13-CD (!) set of
recovery discs for Windows, have set out to try to run a dual boot with
Linux.

I first turned to Hewlett-Packard online support, where the representative
suggested that I remove the "recovery partition (a small secondary partition
that is the first option to recover from lost or corrupt files for Windows
or included applications)," and install my secondary operating system on
that.

That I did, up until the last part. During the Slackware install, I was
unable to make any changes with fdisk or cfdisk. The problems I got were
along these lines:

- One program could not get a grip on the filesystem or partition table, and
simply could not recognize *any* of the partitions on the hard drive, much
less write new ones, and may have said something like unable to find DOS or
superblock or Sun or other partitions.

- The other one simply said I did not have permission to write to the
partition table, though it may have recognized some of the Windows data on
the hard drive.

After some frustration with this, I was able to get my hands on a copy of a
Partition Magic-like program, "Partition Commander." That program took the
MBR, which was not a problem. I tried to use the 'install new operating
system' option which even had a picture of Tux the penguin for its icon, but
gave me some non-descript error on that line. However, I was able to resize
the Windows partitions to have them take up about half of the 80 gigs on the
drive instead of all of it.

Additionally, I was able to install a number of ext3 partitions and a Linux
Swap partition through this program, seemingly so I could move ahead with my
Linux install. However, to my dismay, neither of the installations was able
to recognize the Linux partitions (if one of the two, (c)fdisk even
recognized the Windows partitions), and at fdisk was still unable to
recognize any partitions or even a valid partitioning scheme on the drive.
Therefore, I could not move forward with my Linux install.

I am somewhat ignorant about the low-level mechanics of hard drives, so I'd
be pleased if you'd excuse me for that, but I figured having
partition-commander taking up the MBR, and/or whatever else is at the very
beginning of the drive, it might affect my chances of success w/ installing
Linux positively. However, I had no such luck.

I have used linux for 6-7 years now, at least two years of which I was
running a dual boot, and this is the first time I have run into something
like this. It seems that Microsoft and/or HP have intentionally made it
difficult to install secondary Operating Systems on the drive. I can't
imagine they could make a proprietary hard drive, but indeed the sticker on
the front of the machine (besides the Intel Inside one, (but that's another
story :)) says "designed for Microsoft Windows XP."

Could it be that there is installed on the hard drive, in the first areas,
some kind of information or partitioning scheme that neither Linux nor
Partition-Commander could completely understand? Fdisk was unable to even
recognize the hard drive as having a valid DOS partition.

I've searched the web and Deja-Google for information on this, but no one
seems to have this specific problem.

Any help would be very appreciated.

Thanks,
Andrew L.

Relevant Pages

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