Difference between revisions of "DVD Install And Custom Partitions"

Revision as of 20:36, 28 February 2009

Usually, a DVD install will create a standard partitioning schema, where the harddisk is split into 3 areas

sda1 = / (everything except the last 12GB)
sda5 = swap (2GB)
sda6 = /mnt/recovery (10GB)

This setup caused a problem because the hard drive space available was 1.8TB. And the BIOS and/or grub had problems installing relevant files.

Partition the disk

Before the real installation, the hard disk needs to be partitioned and setup the way we want to. To do that, we boot with any live CD, or the LinuxMCE Installation DVD. I used the LinuxMCE installation DVD. Booting will present the menu, where we want to install LinuxMCE. We don't choose anything, but press <ALT><F2> to get a prompt.

Execute

sudo fdisk /dev/xxxx

where /dev/xxxx is the device you want to partition

Now use fdisk to create the partitions. The first partition should be big enough to hold LinuxMCE. I chose 80GB, to be on the save side. After that create an extended partition for the rest of the available disk space. Within the extended partition, first create a logical partition for the swap of say 2GB, then a logical partition for the rescue partition of 10GB. The rest of the space, you can partition to your liking. I ended up with this

sda1 = / 80GB
sda5 = swap 2GB
sda6 = /mnt/recovery (10GB)
sda7 = rest (1.7xTB)

Instead of using fdisk you can use any other tool you might have. Just make sure to have partitions 1,5 and 6. After creating the partitions, the partitions need to be formatted.

sda1 = sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1
sda5 = sudo mkswap /dev/sda5
sda6 = sudo mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda6
sda7 = sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda7

The first three are important. The partitions you are creating after the recovery partition, can be anything you like. Now the partitioning is the way we like it.

Marking The HDD As A LinuxMCE Installation

LinuxMCE would repartition the hard disk now, if you would just start the DVD installer. We need fool LinuxMCE Installer into believing we already have a LinuxMCE installation. To do so we have to create a single file. If you are using the LMCE DVD, it has created the /media/target directory to use below, but if you are using another live CD/DVD, then you need to mount /dev/sda1 somewhere on your system to create the following files inside of the sda1 partition.

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/target
sudo mkdir /media/target/etc
sudo touch /media/target/etc/pluto.conf

Done. A restart of your system with the DVD in the drive, and LinuxMCE installer will prompt you, if you want to keep your installation. I chose option 2, meaning just the home dir. LinuxMCE installer will now go ahead and install the new system, while preserving your partitions. Upon restarting, AV Wizard, and House Setup, all other partitions will be detected, and you will be asked, how you want to use them. Choose LinuxMCE directory structure, and everything is fine.