when to resize partitions

[Stephen Constantinou]

Stephen Constantinou wrote:
> Derek Broughton wrote:
>> Stephen Constantinou wrote:
>>
>>> Q1) How can I tell which partition was the home partition?
>> Best to boot into the Mandriva system and check what partitions are mounted.
>>  
>>> Q2) Can I assume that if I chose the manual option I will be able to
>>> combine all the non windows partitions and then at a different stage
>>> allocate it to kubuntu and it will sort out the swop, bootable partition
>>> etc.  I am hoping I will not be asked which partitions are for which
>>> purpose as I will not know.
>> If you use the manual partitioning tool to _delete_ all the unneeded
>> partitions, you then back up in the installer and restart the "guided"
>> install - it will use all the available free space and partition it
>> appropriately
> Dear All and Derek
> 
> Alas, alack
> 
> I did this but ended up with Mandriva, XP, and Kubuntu on my computer. 
> It was as though after deleting the partitions and going back one stage 
> the deleted partitions were ignored.  I was presented with three options 
> that used the word guided:
> A) Guided - resize SCSII (0,0,0) partition #9 (sda) and use free space 
> (I did not chose this one as I could not understand why I could move the 
> slider partition to the far left but not allocate all to Kubuntu)
> B) Guided - use entire disk
> C) Guided - use the largest continuous free space (I chose this one as 
> it appeared to be the suggestion "-it will use all the available free 
> space and partition it")
> As a result I have moved from this
>             SIZE      USED
> sda1 fat16    41MB    33MB
> sda2 ntfs  78279MB 56634MB
> sda4 fat32  3380MB  2366MB
> 
> sda5  ext3  4186MB   604MB
> sda6  swop  4186MB     0MB
> sda7  ext3  8381MB  3316MB
> sda8  ext3 28697MB  1216MB
> sda9  ext3 28648MB  6842MB
> sda10 ext3  4194MB   100MB
> 
> to this:
>             SIZE      USED
> sda1 fat16    41MB    33MB
> sda2 ntfs  78279MB 56634MB
> sda4 fat32  3380MB  2366MB
> sda5  ext3  4186MB   604MB
> sda6  swap  4186MB     0MB
> sda7  ext3  8381MB  3316MB
> sda8  ext3  4375MB   828MB
> sda11 ext3 23269MB  2578MB
> sda12 swap  1052MB     0MB
> sda9  ext3 28648MB  6842MB
> sda10 ext3  4194MB   100MB
> 
> Before I deleted these partition's I looked at the other options of 
> editing the partition and I was confronted with options I did not 
> understand: Ext3 Journalling file system, Ext2 Journalling file system 
> and many others.
> 
> At one stage, I cannot remember what I had done, I was asked to select 
> /.  That really confused me.
> 
> sda1 and sda4 are probably the recovery partition and the diagnostic 
> tools that were installed by default by Dell.
> 
> I am at the edge of my knowledge if not beyond it and now I am in a 
> worse position than before.  Currently the default OS to boot is 
> Kubuntu.  When my wife discovers this she will be really annoyed.
> 
> So here are the questions
> 1) What does the slider bar in option A mean?  Should I have chosen this?
> 2) How do I achieve my objective of Windows XP and Kubuntu (plus Dell 
> recovery and diagnostics)?
> 3) If I do achieve this will I have to make XP the default or will it be 
> done for me?
> 
> Any further help appreciated
> 
> Yours in desperation
> 
> Stephen Constantinou
> 

Dear All and Meg

Desperation led me to look again at all the previous replies.  Meg's 
suggestion worked a treat.  I downloaded an ISO of gparted made a 
bootable CD.  Booted to it, deleted the now many unwanted partitions. 
Rebooted to the Kubuntu CD and chose the option to be guided - use the 
largest free space available.

I have learnt a little, solved the problem and have exactly what I wanted.

Thank you all, thank you Meg

Stephen