GParted

Appendix B: GParted Procedure

This section provides the procedure for repartitioning your disk drive to make room for the OpenSolaris software. The goal of this task is to create a free primary partition which is required for the OpenSolaris software to install successfully. Partitioning the hard drive into smaller fdisk partitions is a necessary step to set up a multiboot environment. Each operating system is installed on its own fdisk partition.

To Repartition Your Disk

1. Power on the laptop.
2. Determine the current partition size by completing the following steps:
   1. Choose Control Panel from the Start menu.
      The Control Panel is displayed.
   2. Double-click the Administrative Tools icon.
      The Administrative Tools window is displayed.
   3. Double-click the Computer Management icon.
      The Computer Management window is displayed.
   4. Finally, double-click the Disk Management icon.
      You can see the current disk partition size. Note down this information and use it to confirm the data reported by GParted in a later step of this procedure.
3. If you have not already done so, burn the System Rescue CD.
   See SourceForge and use the instructions at www. sysresccd.org.
4. Set the CD/DVD-Rom drive to be the first boot device, and reboot the system.
   The Welcome to SystemRescueCd screen is displayed.
5. Press the Enter key to boot the CD.
   After the boot is complete, a list of commands for the different utilities, modes, and documentation appears.
6. To start the GParted partitioning utility, type the following command:

root@sysresccd /root % startx

A large window is displayed, incluing a number of icons on the right hand side of the window.

1. Click on the third icon from the top to open the Gparted Graphical User Interface.
   All the available disks are displayed.
2. Select the disk to be resized.
3. Click the Resize/Move button located on the menu bar.
   The Resize Partition dialog box appears.
4. To set the desired partition size, position the cursor at the edge of the green box, hold down the left mouse button and drag the box to the desired size.
   The fields below the box indicate the exact size of the desired partition.
   The recommended partition size for the Slim Installer is 10 GB. For additional information, see Managing Disks.
5. To save this setting, click the Resize/Move button within the dialog box.
   The Resize Partition dialog box is closed.
6. To begin creating the new partition, select the disk you want to partition.
   Position the cursor on the selected disk and right-click the mouse and click on New from the popup menu.
7. Choose Linux-swap from the Filesystem drop-down menu and click the Add button. Click Close to close this window.

Note - Linux-swap is the same partition ID that Solaris uses. During the Slim Installation, in the Disk partitioning step, you will be able to change this Linux-swap partition to a Solaris partition.

The Create Partition dialog box is closed.

1. Click on the Apply button to confirm and apply the pending operations.
2. After the Progress bar reaches 100% and the "Operations Completed Successfully" message appears, click OK.
   The Progress dialog box is closed.
3. To exit GParted, choose Exit from the File menu.
   The main screen of the Gparted utility is displayed.
4. Open a terminal window to exit the Gparted utility and reboot the system. To open a terminal window, click on the fourth icon from the top. To reboot Windows, type the following command:

root@sysresccd /root % reboot

Troubleshooting

If Windows does not boot, restore the operating system by loading the g4u CD and typing the following command:

g4u > slurpdisk IP address imagename.gz wdo

Where IP address is the IP address of the FTP server where you saved the image, imagename.gz is the name of the backup file, and wdo is the disk you want to restore.

At the prompt, type the password for the install user account.

Windows is restored to the whole disk and the partition you created with QTParted is overwritten.

Next Steps

If Windows booted successfully, click the Installation tab for further instructions about how to install the OpenSolaris software on the new partition.

Previous: Appendix A: nwam(1).

Next: Appendix C: Parallels.