Help needed with Windows 7 and partitioning

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Dark Star

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I will be getting my CPU RMA'ed in 2-3 days and I planning to sell it and get X2 550.. But that is not an issue.. The thing is I want to do some serious benchmarking again so I have to install Windows :P

I have got Win7 RC1 DVD which is suppose to have 90days usage ? Isn't it ? Well before I install it I have some questions..

1. What about chipset drivers ? I have ATI 790GX board so will I get drivers pre-installed [I heard WIn7 comes with nvidia drivers ?] or I have to install Catalyst 9.6 ...
2. Will I get drivers for my LAN and other utils that comes with motherboard ? Will it automatically detect and set it or I have to install it ?
3. Will all the benchmarking software like 3dmarks , Super PI :P, and other will run in windows 7 ..

Which additional software I need to install .
Onto the partitioning .... I have corrupted my partition table and I am getting something to take backup, so I will be formatting my harddisk and repartitioning it for needs..

This is what my current system looks like
Code: 
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        4975    39961656   83  Linux
/dev/sda2            4976        6173     9622903+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3            6174       10507    34812855   83  Linux
/dev/sda4           10508       77826   540739867+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5           10508       29629   153597433+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6           29630       54870   202748301   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           54871       77825   184386006   83  Linux

screenshotdir.png


All the partitions you see are linux based.. Three of them are reserved for Linux installation and /home directory of size [Home-Primary OS-Testing OS] 44-40-10Gb ..

Rest of the partitions have my data .. I have segregated my partitions apart from linux one's as :

1. Music - ~160Gb
2. Anim. and Movies - ~210Gb
3. Data - ~180Gb ..
Is it good enough.. I am thinking of reducing data and music and allocating few for Windows7 .. I will not be converting any of the partition to NTFS except one needed for installation.. Thus all the software/games/benchmarks installation goes into it.. How much big partition will I need for Win7 ..

P.s : Saiyan get ready

Please do help me..
Regards
Darky;)
 
1. What about chipset drivers ? I have ATI 790GX board so will I get drivers pre-installed [I heard WIn7 comes with nvidia drivers ?] or I have to install Catalyst 9.6 ...
2. Will I get drivers for my LAN and other utils that comes with motherboard ? Will it automatically detect and set it or I have to install it ?
3. Will all the benchmarking software like 3dmarks , Super PI , and other will run in windows 7 ..
Click to expand...

To be on a safer side, download and keep the drivers. But usually win7 does not ask for chipset drivers. Atleast not me. As for the graphic drivers, after a fresh installation of Win7 i saw WDDM-1 and WDDM-2 (CF) drivers in device manager so i suspect that you do not need Catalyst to be installed unless you need it.

What brand of motherboard is 790GX ? (Is that really ATI or something else?)
I could only find these drivers for 790GX on the AMD site.
AMD Support Search
and


The benching softwares do work on Win7, no worries.

Lastly, if you are only concentrating on using Win7 for benching purpose, you
should make a single partition of 50GB only.
 
Dark Star said:
I have got Win7 RC1 DVD which is suppose to have 90days usage ? Isn't it ? Well before I install it I have some questions..
Click to expand...
You get legal license keys that'll allow you to run it into next early year. You won't get them at Microsoft site I guess, but search on the net some guys have taken more than 1 and posted them on their blogs/sites/forums etc.
Dark Star said:
1. What about chipset drivers ? I have ATI 790GX board so will I get drivers pre-installed [I heard WIn7 comes with nvidia drivers ?] or I have to install Catalyst 9.6 ...
Click to expand...
I installed it on a ATi 3670, worked fine as far as I can remember, but I did install the Catalyst drivers.
Dark Star said:
2. Will I get drivers for my LAN and other utils that comes with motherboard ? Will it automatically detect and set it or I have to install it ?
Click to expand...
You won't have to do much is all I can say, it will pick up pretty much everything but can't you a definite answer. LAN etc. will work w/o u having to do anything.
Dark Star said:
3. Will all the benchmarking software like 3dmarks , Super PI :P, and other will run in windows 7 ..
Click to expand...
What runs on Vista runs on 7.
Dark Star said:
Which additional software I need to install .
Click to expand...
Depends on what you want to do.
Dark Star said:
Is it good enough.. I am thinking of reducing data and music and allocating few for Windows7 .. I will not be converting any of the partition to NTFS except one needed for installation.. Thus all the software/games/benchmarks installation goes into it.. How much big partition will I need for Win7 ..
Click to expand...
As suggested 50 gigs is more than sufficient.
 
^^Yes I can do bench on linux, Super PI , Prime95 and host of other benching software Phoronix test suite is available for linux..

But I want to test WIn7 as well..
 
I find your partitioning table a little odd. You have designated a very small partition for /home.

Why don't you designate as follows:

/dev/sda1 20 GB Windows 7, single partition
/dev/sda5 20 GB root of regular distro
/dev/sda6 07 GB root of testing distro 1, /home will be physically located here too
/dev/sda7 07 GB root of testing distro 1, /home will be physically located here too
/dev/sda8 02 GB swap
/dev/sda9 remaining space for /home in ext3 filesystem

Use ext2ifs to write to /home

Tip: While installing Windows 7 on an empty hard disk it forces a kind of /boot as the first partition. To avoid this:
1. Install XP on 20 GB /dev/sda1
2. Format remaining space as ext3
3. Boot and install from Windows 7 boot cd as a fresh install; go to the advanced partitioning set up during install and format C:

This will force the Windows 7 installer to install into a single partition.
Was not able to get GRUB work with Windows 7 so you may need a third party bootloader as I have described elsewhere.
 
Dark Star said:
I have got Win7 RC1 DVD which is suppose to have 90days usage ? Isn't it ?

There're keys which'd let you use the OS till the next year! Will send you one sometime later.

1. What about chipset drivers ? I have ATI 790GX board so will I get drivers pre-installed [I heard WIn7 comes with nvidia drivers ?] or I have to install Catalyst 9.6 ...

Win 7 comes pre-installed with the most common video/audio/LAN drivers but you do need to install the ATI/nV drivers to ensure compatibility with the most recent games which may have fixes and updates. Grab the Catalyst 9.7 for Win 7.


2. Will I get drivers for my LAN and other utils that comes with motherboard ? Will it automatically detect and set it or I have to install it ?

LAN drivers are pre-installed. Install the motherboard chipset driver and the video driver. Drivers for most common onboard audio chips such as Realtek is pre-installed. But rather have it installed to avoid any issues later on.

3. Will all the benchmarking software like 3dmarks , Super PI :P, and other will run in windows 7 ..

Everything works just fine.
Click to expand...

As for the partitioning, have a partition of 40~50GB for Win 7. You wouldn't need mroe than that. Have a separate partition for you music, movies and the Linux distros. That's about it.
 
^^Thanks a lot guys :) Will make a 50gb partition ..

I think I need a 1Tb now :P Data is keep on coming :P

Anyway waiting for your key Gannu sir :)
 
Ok its high time :P taking backup atm will be done by half an hour or more..

SO I want to know if this partitioning scheme is right or not

Primary :

1. ~50Gb - Win7

2. ~25gb - Main Linux

3. ~20Gb - Additional testing linux

----- Extended

4. 2Gb - Swap

5. ~220 GB - Movies | Anim. and few data

6 ~125Gb -- Music

7 . ~150 Gb -- Data

8. ~50Gb - /home

Total ~596 that I get from 640Gb HDD>. Is it right ..? should I go forward with it ? OR need to do any more changes.. I may need one more partition for Linux..
 
I don't know what to say.. The installation was way slow but well it ended safely :P There is no sound in Win7, the printer HP AIO 1410 showing error in setting up driver and i don't find it better than Vista but since I have installed it, I am planning to use it for a while only half an hour/day :P

Anyidea how to fix the audio issue in WIndows7 ? Also where are wallpaper and user account pictures located ?

Here is the final partition table :)

 
Have you tried the Windows Update after installation to check for drivers for your sound card..? And what is the error for the printer? Try running the printer software installation in compatibility mode.
 
It would seem to me (I have triple os installation) that having another ntfs partition is a good idea so that you can have an drive to share info between OS's. I would suggest keeping movies and music on ntfs, that way you will also have a better time retrieving data if it gets corrupted and you can watch them on any OS.
 
hp-india said:
Have you tried the Windows Update after installation to check for drivers for your sound card..? And what is the error for the printer? Try running the printer software installation in compatibility mode.
Click to expand...

I did updated my system but still no sound :(

For printer it shows that some drivers are not installed and when I click to troubleshoot :2guns: it keeps on searching without any results ..

How to fix these issues ?
 
I was able to install a couple of drivers by making sure hardware is attached and doing a windows update. This was how Windows 7 installed my printer driver :)
 
I have installed the Windows 7 Release Candidate and loved it. Now I need to turn back to XP. I have one partition with XP and another with 7. I already deleted the BIOS entry of 7 so when I turn on my PC it boots straight into XP. Now I just need to delete the partition. I go to the partition in My Computer (In XP of course) and click format. I select all the defaults and name it "Local Disk". Then when I click Format it gives this error:

Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any utilities or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no window is displaying the contents of this drive. Then try formatting again.
 
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