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Re: [LUG] Dual Boot Windows 7

 

On 11/09/12 12:02, Henry Bremridge wrote:
> I have a new laptop (Samsung from PC World) and am not enjoying Windows.
> From reading on the web (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpipA-_3nSs), I
> assume that the best way to getting back to Debian is:
> 1) Set up partition from within Windows
> 2) Install Debian live and then follow the instructions as normal. Or is a
> debian netinst fine.
>
> Given that
> a) I would like whole disk encryption for my debian data (client data) and
> I intend to back up every night to an external hardrive
> b) I have spent hours getting Windows updated and I do not want to use
> system restore on windows
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions?
>

This and Steven's suggestions are mostly fine: you however do *not* want
to perform partition resizing from within windows (it may not even be
possible depending on the type of partition, i.e., dynamic vs simple
volume) especially if you have one single boot volume (200Mb 'loader'
partition + the rest of the disk as your NTFS data partition).
Partitioning secondary or tertiary non-OS disks from within windows is
fine however.

You will be best served by obtaining the gparted live CD and booting
from that to initially resize your windows partition. This will make
windows panic initially after the resize operation and it will want to
run a chkdisk on your first boot afterwards. You must let this complete.
Steven is not necessarily correct that you will not have to defrag
windows first: this is a random thing, depending on how heavily windows
has been used. Frequently, shrinking the windows partition will be
limited because windows has written non-reassignable data blocks to
certain sectors of your disk which parted/fdisk can not work around.
Bittorrent programs are the biggest cause of this due to their heavy and
random disk thrashing. Just attempt your resize first and if gparted
will not let you assign as much space as you want, you will have to
install a third party program or use a NTFS defrag tool from a live
CD/USB to shift the offending data to the start of the disk. 9 times out
of 10 the debian installer will handle this perfectly, the above advice
is only applicable if you are unlucky. Personally, I like to get things
right first time so I always handle retrospective dual booting setups
this way (it has never failed me in hundreds if not thousands of installs).

I always use the netinst disk personally, but as Steven suggested, this
is largely dependent on your personal preference and your internet
connection. You are correct to avoid System Restore, it is an
unspeakably useless piece of crap and should always be deactivated
immediately on windows. Debian handles full disk encryption very
elegantly, and you should definitely implement it on a laptop (easily
lost or stolen if you carry it around with you). The partitioner will
guide you through setting up the LUKS volumes and the encryption. I take
it I don't really need to tell you why you should encrypt the entire
system rather than just your home partition?

If you want to also encrypt the windows partition then your main options
are bitlocker (if your hardware/windows version support it - it's not
available in home versions for example) or Truecrypt, which is better,
but is tricky to set up on a single disk dual boot system as the debian
grub bootloader and the Truecrypt bootloader will fight for control of
the MBR. It's possible, just inconvenient. Personally I would advise
getting rid of windows altogether or doing a P2V conversion and
relegating the windows system to a virtual machine, where it belongs. If
you're sensible, before mucking around too much with complicated
bootloader configurations back up your MBR with "dd if=/dev/sda
of=/my.mbr.bak bs=512 count=1" so that you can restore it if necessary.
Good luck.

Regards



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