Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

bladdo · 2009-06-13 12:59:12

Here is my dilema:

I have a Fujitsu Lifebook T4010 Laptop with a Wacom Tablet built into the screen. About a month ago I installed Arch Linux on it. It took me a while to get everything working (tablet screen/function buttons/on rotate flip reso) but eventually I got it all working.

The thing is I feel like I'm not fully taking advantage of its tablet abilities. I want to be able to use it with Photoshop and Flash. I decided I should dual boot it with Windows XP / Arch.

So I cut down on my /home partition and freed up ~25 gigs of the total 80 gigs for Windows. When I went to install it told me the maximum number of partitions had been met. I looked it up online and apparently you can only have 4 primary partitions and with the 4 that Arch currently occupies (boot/swap/root/home) it looks like I'm out of luck.

I'm thinking my only option is to combine my home partition with my root partition to free up a primary partition. People tell me it's easier when you have Windows installed first but to be honest it took me quite some time to get this laptop/tablet up and running and all of it's features working for me how I wanted and I don't want to have to go through it again.

If anyone has any advice, work arounds, or could tell me how I would go about safely combining my home and root partition it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks a ton,

Last edited by bladdo (2009-06-13 17:12:09)

Mr.Elendig · 2009-06-13 13:04:04

In what order are the partions on your disk?

bladdo · 2009-06-13 13:13:04

sda1 boot
sda2 swap
sda3 root
sda4 home
then 25gb unpartitioned space

cwjiof · 2009-06-13 13:26:06

1. Boot your computer from CD-Rom with archlinux-2009.02 CD, and login as root;
2. mount /dev/sda3 /mnt; mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
3. chroot /mnt
4. Install the grub to /dev/sda
5. Reboot your laptop.

bladdo · 2009-06-13 13:59:42

cwjiof wrote:

1. Boot your computer from CD-Rom with archlinux-2009.02 CD, and login as root;
2. mount /dev/sda3 /mnt; mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
3. chroot /mnt
4. Install the grub to /dev/sda
5. Reboot your laptop.

and then what? I will still have 4 linux partitions and won't be able to install Windows.

lzs · 2009-06-13 14:02:19

Why don't you delete the swap partition? You could then create a new primary for windows and an extended partition/logical for swap.

bladdo · 2009-06-13 14:08:50

lzs wrote:

Why don't you delete the swap partition? You could then create a new primary for windows and an extended partition/logical for swap.

Is there a guide or could you tell me how I would go about doing this?

I don't have much work with dealing with partitions.

Thanks a ton!

lzs · 2009-06-13 14:14:33

After a second thought, you'd have to move the home partition as well, as the extended partition counts too. I'd start with an arch live cd, cfdisk, delete swap, make extended, 2 logical drives, format the partition, backup, move home's content. then delete home, create new primary, install windows, write grub again, put the new partitions into fstab and tell grub where to find windows.

EDIT: After a third thought, combining home and root might be easier: Just copy home's content to your root partition (if ther is enough room ...), unmount home, copy the stuff to /home and delete the home partition from fstab. Then delete the old home partition.

Last edited by lzs (2009-06-13 14:19:45)

bladdo · 2009-06-13 14:32:03

lzs wrote:

After a second thought, you'd have to move the home partition as well, as the extended partition counts too. I'd start with an arch live cd, cfdisk, delete swap, make extended, 2 logical drives, format the partition, backup, move home's content. then delete home, create new primary, install windows, write grub again, put the new partitions into fstab and tell grub where to find windows.
EDIT: After a third thought, combining home and root might be easier: Just copy home's content to your root partition (if ther is enough room ...), unmount home, copy the stuff to /home and delete the home partition from fstab. Then delete the old home partition.

Copying the home's contents to the root partition was what I had in mind. I'm trying to figure out how I would go about doing that though. If I copy the /home to the root partition from the old home partition - will it automatically pick it up if I delete the fstab entry. Also will it be possible to expand my /root partition after that to take up the space the home partion use to own?

lzs · 2009-06-13 14:44:26

Yes, it will pick it up. You will have to unmount home, before you can move the content to /home. So you might want to copy the it to e.g. /var/home first. You should be able to expand the root partition after that. It has to be unmounted though. So you will have to use a live cd for that. And I'd backup before I tried to expand a partition with important data.

Last edited by lzs (2009-06-13 14:45:41)

bladdo · 2009-06-13 17:11:39

Thanks lzs. I figured it all out.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-13 12:59:12

Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

#2 2009-06-13 13:04:04

Re: Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

#3 2009-06-13 13:13:04

Re: Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

#4 2009-06-13 13:26:06

Re: Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

#5 2009-06-13 13:59:42

Re: Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

#6 2009-06-13 14:02:19

Re: Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

#7 2009-06-13 14:08:50

Re: Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

#8 2009-06-13 14:14:33

Re: Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

#9 2009-06-13 14:32:03

Re: Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

#10 2009-06-13 14:44:26

Re: Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

#11 2009-06-13 17:11:39

Re: Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

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