Re: Trying to install Linux on a Win XP machine
From: Aragorn (stryder_at_telenet.invalid)
Date: 09/18/05
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Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2005 03:12:11 GMT
On Sunday 18 September 2005 04:20, Andrew Levin stood up and spoke the
following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/
> 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 no experience whatsoever with Slackware or the way it's
installed, but I will give it a try... ;-)
> 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.
Ehm... I'm not sure what you mean by "recovery disks", but I presume you
mean back-ups?
> 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.
Okay, that makes sense.
> 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.
Well, you have not given us any specs on your hardware, other than that
it's an HP machine.
What kind of hard disk are we talking about here? SCSI, PATA, SATA?
Brand?
> - 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.
Are you sure you had root privileges? Does the BIOS of the machine have
an option to prevent write access to the master boot record?
> 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.
Hmm... I'm not a fan of those partitioning programs for Windows. They
can leave you with badly screwed up partition tables or overlapping
partition boundaries, etc.
> 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.
You mentioned /fdisk/ and /cfdisk./ Have you tried /*sfdisk?*/
> 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.
Have you contacted the HP Customer Service again about this issue? This
is certainly not acceptable behavior.
> 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.
Microsoft, possibly, yes. HP, I don't think so, since they support
Gnu/Linux.
> 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."
Yes, but that's not an indication that you can't use the machine with
anything other _than_ Windows XP. That's just a show-off sticker for
marketing purposes.
My second-hand Toshiba laptop also has such a sticker. I couldn't for
the life of me get it off of the plastic - they probably use some
industrial glue for those - but at least it's so worn from the friction
of my hands that you can't even tell what was on anymore.
That laptop is running Gnu/Linux, by the way... ;-)
> 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?
Possible? Hmm... Probably, I guess. Likely? No, I don't think so.
> 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.
I can't really give you any concrete diagnosis at this stage, other than
that there may be a BIOS-engaged MBR protection in place. I recommend
that you contact the HP Customer Service again and hear what they say.
P.S. : You do remember to check the /md5sums/ on the distribution's
/.iso/ files you download against those on their mirror, don't you?
Not that I think that a corrupted set of Slack CD's is responsible for
your current woes, but it's always best to be on the safe side. ;-)
-- With kind regards, *Aragorn* (Registered Gnu/Linux user #223157)
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- In reply to: Andrew Levin: "Trying to install Linux on a Win XP machine"
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