XP / SuSE Dual Boot - Partition question.

[Jeriko]

I'm a total Linux noob who is looking to set up an XP / SuSE dual boot box to serve primarily as a PVR / AV receiver. I'm going to be using a 120 gig hard drive to record the video from a Hauppauge PVR-250. I may be switching back and forth between capturing video on XP and Linux, so I want the partitioned space to be "share-able" between the two. That is, I don't want my hard drive and my video space to be split between XP and SuSE, I want to be able to record the MPEG or AVI video to the same partition that is accessible to both OS's.

So how do I do this?

-J

 

[xcript]

Format it as FAT32 (not NTFS).

That's it.

You won't have any problems reading from/writing to the fat32 partition under linux.

Edit:

But wait, isn't there a limit on the size of a fat32 partition?

Maybe someone else will shed some light on this.

 

[cleverhandle]

You're going to hit nasty file size limitations with FAT for video work, though. I believe the max file size is 2GB. Maybe 4, but either way that's not very big in context.

 

[xcript]

Click Here

So it's not the partition size, but the filesize limitation which could cause you problems (as cleverhandle says).

 

[Jeriko]

I don't know if I should be comfortable with that 4 gig limit or not. I think I would need to know how big two hour's worth of (I think) MPEG2 from a Hauppauge at max quality is (I'd probably rarely use it but I'd like the option).

-J

 

[flywing]

The 2 GB limit is for fat16 not fat32. I do not know the limit for fat32 but it is greater than 30GB.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: flywing
The 2 GB limit is for fat16 not fat32. I do not know the limit for fat32 but it is greater than 30GB.

We're talking single file size, not total filesystem size. Did you read the link xcript provided? The max single file size in FAT32 is 4GB.

 

[Jeriko]

This is not looking good so far. If I have a 4.7 gig DVD, I'd like to be able to write on the whole thing if the video file requires it, not be limited to 4 gigs.

And after some research I've found the DVD quality setting in the 250's software writes at 40 megs a minute - which is 4.8 gigs for two hours, or 800 megs over the file limit.

Well I guess all I can ask is if you all have any other suggestions.

-J

 

[xcript]

AFAIK the file size limit for EXT2 is 16GB, so it may be an option.

There are ext2 filesystem drivers for windows such as this one (not sure how stable they are though).

 

[cleverhandle]

You don't have many good options other than splitting up the drive. Linux can read NTFS just fine, so maybe you could give less space to Linux, and copy over files from XP as needed. But to transfer Linux-->XP, you'd need to burn to DVD. Or just go half and half - 60 gigs is still hella lot of space. If you're really serious you could set up a file server over gigabit accessible to both OS's, but I don't think that's what you have in mind. I suppose you could do something like keep working files on native filesystems, then split them into sub-4GB chunks and move them to a FAT32 partition for permanent storage/sharing. If you don't often plan to break the 4GB limit, that might not be such a bad plan, but I suspect it would become very tedious very quickly.

Under the circumstances, I think I'd just go half and half to keep things simple and use DVD's for transfers. But video editing is not really my thing, so that means little...

 

[Jeriko]

I think what I'll do is this:

Create a 25-30 gig WinXP NTFS partition. This will function as a large file partition if I ever need to copy a DVD or something, and allows some space for games and such.

Create a small (I don't know how big an average SuSE install is - I need a suggestion here) FAT32 (or whatever file system Linux likes the best) partition for the Linux OS and programs.

Devote the remaining ~85-90 megs to a third FAT32 partition accessible by both, used for day to day recording.

That sound like a plan?

-J

 

[cleverhandle]

You're missing some info that may affect your plan - all of Linux's preferred filesystems (ext2, ext3, reiser, xfs, and others) can handle large files just fine. So you'll be able to handle copying and editing of large files just fine on the Linux partition. The only issue is sharing them directly with XP. And you can't install Linux to FAT32, so that won't be an option.

As for install size, it depends of course on what you install. I would say a typical desktop-ish Linux install probably wants a few gigs. So if you want to leave some scratch space for large file work under Linux, maybe 15-20 gigs total would work. After you subtract the marketing penalty in storage measurement, that would leave you ~60 gigs of space for shared FAT32 space.

 

[Jeriko]

All right. 20 gigs for Linux. 30 gigs for Windows. 70 gigs for FAT32 shared. But that's as low as I'll go.

So now the question becomes... How in the holy hell do I format this thing? I need an NTFS partition for Windows, an "ext2, ext3, reiser, xfs, etc" (which would you suggest?) partition for Linux to run on, and a FAT32 for shared.

I've heard you need to install XP first. So do I create the NTFS and FAT32 partitions during Windows installation, and reserve 20 gigs of unformatted space for Linux and its file system?

-J

 

[cleverhandle]

Hmm... there are couple of ways you could go. Personally, I'm a fan of...

The KISS method:

Boot to XP CD.
Create primary partition 1 (25-30 GB) at start of disk for XP, formatted NTFS.
Install XP.
From XP Disk Management, create primary partition 2 (~60-70 GB) and format it FAT32. (Possibly, XP won't easily let you format it FAT32 because it wants you to use NTFS instead for a partition of that size. Fine, then just create the partition, and format it from Linux later or from a boot disk.)
Boot to Linux CD.
Create primary partition 3 (= 2 x RAM) of type Linux Swap (82).
Create primary partition 4 (Remainder of disk), formatted ext3 for the Linux root. (KISS - stick with ext3.)
Install Linux.

However, it could be argued, with some merit for a change, that that's not the ideal partition layout. If you're regularly shuffling big files to and from the FAT partition, you going to lose some STR by putting it in the middle of the disk. You might notice that performance-wise. Personally, I'd say screw it - the FAT partition is only offset about 25%, no big deal. And you'll be using the NTFS partition for editing as well, so the STR is not going to waste. But you could create the FAT partition at the start of the disc during the XP install, make that partition 1, and make the NTFS partition #2. The problem with that is that XP is going to (I think) put NTLDR on the FAT partition, and that's just adding potential for mischief later on. KISS. If you were really serious enough to worry about it, I'd hope you'd get another disk instead of playing partition games.

That's my take, at least. You may want to get a second opinion from the fellows at Storage Review. Several of them do a lot of AV work, and may see things we won't here.

 

[xcript]

Originally posted by: Jeriko
So now the question becomes... How in the holy hell do I format this thing? I need an NTFS partition for Windows, an "ext2, ext3, reiser, xfs, etc" (which would you suggest?) partition for Linux to run on, and a FAT32 for shared.

Just setup the partitions during the XP installation process.

Obviously leave the space you intend to use for linux unallocated and set that up during the installation of SuSE
(ie. split it up into the root, boot & swap partitions).

You can format the 70gig partition as fat32 from within windows.

As for the filesystem to use under linux, I'd recommend ReiserFS. It's fast and seems to recover well after hard locks, etc.

EXT3 is probably the most stable, but is a wee bit on the slow side.

Personally, I like XFS. But it's probably not for you if you don't enjoy fixing the fs/corrupted files several times a month.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: xcript
As for the filesystem to use under linux, I'd recommend ReiserFS. It's fast and seems to recover well after hard locks, etc.

Bleh. Reiser at several points had some pretty severe issue in the 2.4.x series. But it's been stable for quite a while, so let's not hold past sins against it. Even so,

1) Some boot/rescue disks don't support Reiser.
2) It's being totally redesigned in 4.6.
3) IIRC, Reiser's strength is in handling small files. A mail server would capitalize on that, not an editing workstation.

KISS.

 

[sprockkets]

Don't try anything bigger than 30GB for fat, it will try to make it then fail.

 

[WIFFY]

Hi Cleverhandle----
I have a problem--related to this I think. I have a Win2000 machine with a 120 gig hard drive in it
and have created a 30 gig partition formatted FAT32, but now I have created a second partition inside
of Win2000 with the balance of the 120 gig and want to format it FAT32, needless to say WIN2000 won't let me
do this. Please Help!!!! I tried booting with a standard win98 boot disk with the format command on it, to
format this partition with FAT32, but it doesn't even see the created partition (D) that I made inside of win2000.
Again, all I need to do is Format this D: partition that I created in WIN2000 with FAT32. Win2000 wants to do it in
NTFS and I can't do that because this computer is networked to 5 other computers that are all FAT32 and they will
not be able to see that partition if i allow it to use NTFS. PLEASE HELP!! MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE!!! PAULA

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: WIFFY
I have a problem--related to this I think.

Yes, sort of. Still would have been better in a separate thread though.

I have a Win2000 machine with a 120 gig hard drive in it and have created a 30 gig partition formatted FAT32, but now I have created a second partition inside of Win2000 with the balance of the 120 gig and want to format it FAT32, needless to say WIN2000 won't let me do this. Please Help!!!! I tried booting with a standard win98 boot disk with the format command on it, to
format this partition with FAT32, but it doesn't even see the created partition (D) that I made inside of win2000.

If you use fdisk from the boot disk, can you see the partition? You won't be able to do a d: at the command line until it's formatted FAT32. Are you saying format d: chokes on you?

Again, all I need to do is Format this D: partition that I created in WIN2000 with FAT32. Win2000 wants to do it in
NTFS and I can't do that because this computer is networked to 5 other computers that are all FAT32 and they will
not be able to see that partition if i allow it to use NTFS.

If you're sharing files over a network, the other machines have no idea what kind of filesystem the files actually reside on. So I don't see any reason to use FAT32 here. The only time you need FAT32 for sharing is if you've got multiple OS's on the same machine.

And welcome to the forums.