upgrading dual boot fedora - partitions

[tns1]

tns1 wrote:
> I have a dual boot XP + FC3 I am upgrading to FC8. Problem is I don't 
> remember all those partition mysteries, and I don't want to stomp my 
> XP install. I don't care if I preserve any of my FC3 files, I just 
> thought an upgrade might be safer than a fresh install.
>
> When I started to 'upgrade', I got a warning about /dev/hda6 not being 
> mountable and how I might have problems if I continued, so I quit. The 
> FC8 installer docs mention there may be (new) problems with unlabeled 
> partitions, and it does appear that several are not labeled:
>
> /dev/hda1, label=none,    type ntfs,  ID 7,                     
> cyl:       0 7564
> /dev/hda2, label="/boot", type linux, ID 83,                  cyl: 
> 7565 7575
> /dev/hda3, label="/",        type linux, ID 83,                  cyl: 
> 7576 10094
> /dev/hda4, label=none,    type W95 ext'd LBA, ID f,    cyl:10095 10337
> /dev/hda5, label=none,    type linux swap, ID 82,          cyl:10095 
> 10229
> /dev/hda6, label=none,    typeW95 FAT32 LBA, ID c, cyl:10230 10336
>
> I know that the 1st partition is XP drive C, the next two are linux 
> /boot and /. The 4th partition is of extended type, which I believe is 
> split into the 5th and 6th partition. The 5th partition is linux swap, 
> and I think the 6th partition was just the odd bytes left over after 
> splitting everything up, and even though it shows up in XP as drive F 
> it isn't really used.
>
> I added volume labels in XP for partition 1 & 6, but it when I booted 
> in FC3, it didn't make any difference as far as what $blkid and fdisk 
> report. I guess volume labels are not the same as partition labels.
>
> If I instead go down the path of a fresh install with FC8 and choose 
> to make custom partition assignments, the installer shows me a table 
> of what it thinks I have - very similar to what I get with $fdisk 
> /dev/hda except the "start" and "end" numbers (cylinders?) are not the 
> same.
>
> For instance instead of
> /dev/hda1 start 0 end 7564 as I posted above, the FC8 installer says
> /dev/sda1 start 1 end 7120. The other partition numbers differ as 
> well. Without knowing more about these numbers, it looks like the 
> installer is going to mess up my XP partition simply because it has 
> the math wrong on partition size. The installer shows the partition 
> label fields but does not let me edit them.
>
> So really three questions:
> How would I add partition labels if I really needed to?
> Do I really need to?
> Why doesn't the installer report the same sizes as fdisk?
>
>
Adding a label with mkswap was enough to keep the installer from 
complaining about /dev/hda6 not being mountable. This partition turned 
out to be where XP keeps its restore points, so it wasn't unused like I 
thought. I fixed up fstab just to see if FC3 would still boot. This site 
seemed to the point, although I didn't follow it exactly: 
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/MountDisksByLabel
After backing up the XP partition with partimage, I went ahead and let 
the installer format the 3 obvious linux partitions, and it seems to 
have turned out fine despite the funny numbers it was showing.

One surprise was how long it took to back up the partition with 
partimage. Although every piece of gear I have is 10/100, I never got 
more than 10Mbits/sec. It took > 8hours for 32GB!  I admit I  just 
fumbled through setting up samba and the link, so maybe I caused the 
problem, or is the compression that much of a drag?