Arch Linux

Caio

Member

Registered: 2009-07-05

Posts: 19

[SOLVED] A few questions about partitions

Hi,

I'm using Windows XP as my primary OS atm. Last year I installed Linux Mint and got it working nicely along with XP, but now I want to try Arch. I have two hard disks - a 320GB SATA2 one and a secondary 80GB IDE one. I've separated about 50GB of the largest for Mint, and I'd like to use these for Arch. Thing is, I'm not sure how I partitioned my HD (I think Mint automated most of it) and I'm scared that I'll screw up. I ran fdisk -l with the Arch CD as suggested by the Beginner's Guide, and here's more or less what I got:

            Boot    Start     End       Blocks   Id   System
/dev/sdb1     *         1   32059   257513886     7   HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2           32060   38913    55054755     5   Extended
/dev/sdb5           32060   38627    52757428+   83   Linux
/dev/sdb6           38628   38913     2297263+   82   Linux swap/solaris

A few questions:

-> I assume sdb1 is where Windows is, and sdb2, 5 and 6 are Mint's. Is that correct? Why are there no sdb3 and 4?
-> If I understand it correctly, hdX means a partition in an IDE disk, and sdX means one in a SATA disk. Is that right? If so, why don't I have an hda (which would be the 80GB HD) partition, and why do I have sdbs instead of sdas?
-> When installing Arch, should I delete Mint's partitions and make new ones, or use the ones it already created?
-> If I decide to start using Arch as my primary OS in the future, will it be possible to resize its home partition?

Thank you very much and sorry for my cluelessness.

Last edited by Caio (2009-07-05 20:26:29)

Zepp

Member

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-03-25

Posts: 334

Website

Re: [SOLVED] A few questions about partitions

Hi,

I'm using Windows XP as my primary OS atm. Last year I installed Linux Mint and got it working nicely along with XP, but now I want to try Arch. I have two hard disks - a 320GB SATA2 one and a secondary 80GB IDE one. I've separated about 50GB of the largest for Mint, and I'd like to use these for Arch. Thing is, I'm not sure how I partitioned my HD (I think Mint automated most of it) and I'm scared that I'll screw up. I ran fdisk -l with the Arch CD as suggested by the Beginner's Guide, and here's more or less what I got:

            Boot    Start     End       Blocks   Id   System
/dev/sdb1     *         1   32059   257513886     7   HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2           32060   38913    55054755     5   Extended
/dev/sdb5           32060   38627    52757428+   83   Linux
/dev/sdb6           38628   38913     2297263+   82   Linux swap/solaris

A few questions:

-> I assume sdb1 is where Windows is, and sdb2, 5 and 6 are Mint's. Is that correct? Why are there no sdb3 and 4?

My guess is because you made the second partion extended. normally 1,2,3,4 will be primary or one will be marked extended. It probably skipped 3 and 4 since you didn't create anymore primary partitions.

-> If I understand it correctly, hdX means a partition in an IDE disk, and sdX means one in a SATA disk. Is that right? If so, why don't I have an hda (which would be the 80GB HD) partition, and why do I have sdbs instead of sdas?

With the new libata driver they all show up as sd?, so no this rule isn't correct.

-> When installing Arch, should I delete Mint's partitions and make new ones, or use the ones it already created?

I would reformat the partitions, but if they are how you want them then you should just leave the partition table untouched. By reformat them I mean recreate the filesystem.

-> If I decide to start using Arch as my primary OS in the future, will it be possible to resize its home partition?

Thank you very much and sorry for my cluelessness.

It looks like you do not have a separate home partition. My guess is you have your windows partition, the extended, and then that is broken into one large partition for / and then swap at the end.

Edit: Oh I should have pointed out, normally arch creates a separate /home partition, if you want this you will have to restructure your extended partitions. This isn't necessary though, it's a preferance thing, there pros/cons to going either route.

Last edited by Zepp (2009-07-05 14:53:58)

Caio

Member

Registered: 2009-07-05

Posts: 19

Re: [SOLVED] A few questions about partitions

I'm sorry, but I'm pretty much a complete Linux noob so I'm not sure what to make of your last two answers. Should I, when installing Arch, just delete sdb 2, 5 and 6 and create another four as described in the Beginner's Guide? Will that work? My only concern here is about damaging the data that is in my Windows partition.

Last edited by Caio (2009-07-05 15:45:26)

Zepp

Member

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-03-25

Posts: 334

Website

Re: [SOLVED] A few questions about partitions

If you want to lay it out like in the guide or the default if you started with a blank disk I would do this

delete 2-6
make a small 32M partition /dev/sdb2 (use this for /boot)
make a 1G partition as /dev/sdb3 (use this for swap)
make an extended partition occupying the rest of the disk (/dev/sdb4)
make a logical partition that is at least 10GB for root (/dev/sdb5)
make one more occupying the rest of the extended partition, use this for home (/dev/sdb6)

Last edited by Zepp (2009-07-05 20:46:57)

Caio

Member

Registered: 2009-07-05

Posts: 19

Re: [SOLVED] A few questions about partitions

Alright, got past that stage... heh. Thank you Zepp.