• Registered: 2009-09-07
  • Posts: 2

Topic: an option "use existing partition" needed in installer

I just tried to install crunchbang-9.04.1 (x86_64 version) on my notebook. I have four partitions on my 80GB hard drive - a  20 MB ntfs for  WindowsXP (I rarely use Windows, but sometimes it is indispensable), and three Linux partitions: 2 GB of swap, a moderate size (15 GB) used to try new distributions, and a large (and full) Reisrerfs for Debian, covering the rest of the disk. When I came to the partitioning stage of the install it recognised perfectly the installed OSs, and proposed to cut out a 2.9 GB slice from the win-partition for crunchbang. Well... it was not what I intended:rolleyes:. I attempted to move the slider on my trial partition, but it obstinately refused. All right, I profoundly understand the idea of reducing Windows to the minimum;). The option "whole disk" was obviously out of consideration, so I tried the "manual" checkbutton and then all my partitions visible oh the graph disappeared. As there was not text explanation I assume, it means creating the partitions from scratch, clearing the existing ones. Of course, I can simply take my gentoo rescue CD and remove the trial partition with fdisk, but the question arises, will the installer use the free space thus created? And, theoretically, what would happen, if there were only Linux partitions on the disk?
Nonetheless, the change of distributions being not so rare an event nowadays, it would be nice to reintroduce the possibility to install on an existing partition - it could have been done without effort in the previous release of #!

  • wuy
  • #! Member
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  • Registered: 2009-02-05
  • Posts: 74

Re: an option "use existing partition" needed in installer

Hi, it seems either you overlooked something or there was some malfunction. I installed #! just yesterday on one of my existing partitions.
After you check 'manual' then hit the 'forward' button and it'll take you to Gparted.

  • Registered: 2008-12-13
  • Posts: 1,480

Re: an option "use existing partition" needed in installer

You can reuse the existing partition, it just may not be totally obvious how to do it if you aren't familiar with the interface. When you get to the manual partition step, click on the partition you want to use (you will have to figure out which that is but if you know the size and what it is formatted is it shouldn't be too hard) then click edit towards the bottom. Then you can select to use the partition and reformat it (I would recommend it) and where to mount it, in this case it would be / Also if you want to mount the other partitions by default you can set it here, click on whatever partition you want mounted, edit it, and tell it to use the partition and where to mount it, just make sure on these ones you don't click on the format box.

I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may.
  • Registered: 2009-09-07
  • Posts: 2

Re: an option "use existing partition" needed in installer

Oh yes, now I got it! I was misled by the disappearing of the partitions on the graph and did not even try the "forward" button. Much thanks!!! And congratulations on the x86_64 version! smile