The Drake X Partitioning

Fig. 1.43

Depending on your situation you will have to consider this screen. Some user will opt for dual boot some not. Your situation however may require special attention! To make this simple for everyone:

• Select Custom disk partitioning.
• Click Next

Custom disk partitioning, will allow you to manipulate the drive in expert mode, especially if you resized your existing windows partition. You probably don't want to wipe out your windows if you are planning a dual boot!

Fig. 1.44 The blank (white) space is the remaining part of the hard drive available for this installation.

For instance observe the above picture, it shows an existing windows partition. And the only way to keep it there is by selecting custom partitioning from the previous screen.

Fig. 1.45

If the drive is brand new or no partition at all it should look like figure 1.45. Where hda will represent your first IDE hard drive

At the bottom of this screen you have the following buttons, which will be used to create your partitions:

Clear all: Clears everything including your windows partitions.
Auto allocate: This option creates the /root partition, the swap partition and /home partition.

More: Display other buttons such as save partition, restore partition table, Rescue partition table and reload partition table.

At the bottom of this screen, there are other four main buttons.

Undo: This option undoes any changes before saved.
Toggle to expert mode: This is the preferred button for creating the necessary partitions.
Done: Clicking on this option will save and format the partition created.

• Click on toggle modes

[When switching to expert mode, normal mode is displayed on this button.]

Many more options are available on the choose action panel.

Actions:
• Mount point
• Type
• Options
• Resize
• Format
• Delete

Now if you click on Auto allocate, the following options are available:

• With /usr
• Simple
• Server

The option we are interested in is the server option even if you are planning on a workstation installation only.

If you already planned to use the entire remaining part of the hard drive, just select auto allocate with server option to create the following partitions.

Fig. 1.46 Server layouts

This partition is auto allocated when server option is selected.
If this option does not satisfy your needs, click on undo and click on the blank part of the hard drive and on the choose action

• Click on create.

This will allow you to create partitions manually (set the size as you prefer). Refer to creating partitions manually in Mandrake 9.0 installation. Once the partitions are created, click on Done. You will be warned that drive hda will be written, click OK. The partitions will be formatted.