Which Partition to delete & Media Direct on Vostro 1500

Question

I am very annoyed - just got the Vostro 1500 today and I want to dual boot Vista and Linux - So I try to install Fedora DVD and guess what Dell have already used all 4 partitions allowed on the disk. So no room for a Linux partition... Q1 Which one should I delete to install Linux ? Utility/Recovery/Media Direct Q2 If I leave Media Direct , or even delete it - will the Media Direct button cause boot problems with the GRUB loader ? I am sorely tempted to wipe the lot and start from fresh other than the time it would take to sort out the drivers

tetractius · Answer

I have the same problem... I need to install linux, I'd to get too Primary Partitions for Root Directory e for the Swap space... I'm going to delete the '2,5 hidden' partion, the D: Windows NTFS Recover partition of 10 GB and resize Vista Partition, but can I do all these things with Gparted (or other software) or these partition are fundamental for all the system? Please... Thanks

bcarteruk · Answer

Well gparted should let you do it all - I have booted the gparted CD and it can see all the partitions - so should be able to delete recovery , resize the OS , then move it up the disk (the trouble is the recovery partition is in front of the OS). I just need the courage to try it.

I am also playing with WUBI loader for UBUNTU on another machine , as that can be installed within the VISTA partition without deleting anything , it just runs a virtual Linux file system over FAT/NTFS - but again I do not know how the boot manager changes it makes will interfere with the media direct changes to the MBR.

It would help if anyone that understood the current media direct installation could explain it to us - all the write ups that I have found are for older versions and not applicable to this weeks installs....

Message Edited by bcarteruk on 08-22-2007 04:01 PM

bcarteruk · Answer

OK I have decided to go the WUBI route for now and leave the DELL partitions alone

I have installed UBUNTU (gnome) using WUBI - a quick check shows that the MBR mods do not seem to have interfered with the media direct button and vice-versa.

A couple of gotcha's - so far my 2 installations of WUBI have only been succesful if I limit the original install size to 4GB (the WUBI help says you can change this later).

On the Vostro the install all goes smoothly up until it loads X for the first time - then if falls over with the wrong nvidia driver - so at the fail point you have to exit to a shell (CTRL+ ALT + F1) and edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to replace the driver "nv" to "vesa" and reboot. That gets you up and running at 1024x768.

Next step is to try and install the latest nvidia drivers for the 8600GM - but thats for tomorrow - will let you know if I am successful

OK success at last on this one

Download the beta 8600 support deb package from here and install it

http://people.ubuntu.com/~bryce/Testing/nv_2.1.2-Feisty/

then I had to re-edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to put back nv instead of vesa

Message Edited by bcarteruk on 08-25-2007 03:05 PM

Message Edited by bcarteruk on 08-26-2007 05:34 AM

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Which Partition to delete & Media Direct on Vostro 1500

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