Suggested Partitioning
In this screen you can see the content of your hard drive(s) along with the
DrakX partitioning proposals for where to install Mageia.
The actual options available from those shown below will vary according to
the layout and content of your particular hard drive(s).
Main Options
Use Existing Partitions
If this option is available, then existing Linux compatible partitions have
been found and may be used for the installation.
Use Free Space
If you have unused space on your hard drive then this option will use it for
your new Mageia installation.
Use Free Space on a Windows Partition
If you have unused space on an existing Windows partition, the installer may
offer to use it. This can be a useful way of making room for your new Mageia
installation, but is a risky operation so you should make sure you have
backed up all important files!
With this option, the installer displays the remaining Windows partition in
light blue and the proposed Mageia partition in dark blue with their
intended sizes just underneath. You have the option to modify these sizes by
clicking and dragging the gap between both partitions. See the following
screenshot:
Erase and use Entire Disk
This option will allocate the entire drive for Mageia
This will erase ALL data on the selected hard drive. Take care! If you
intend to use part of the disk for something else, or you already have data
on the drive that you are not prepared to lose, then do not use this option.
Note that this involves shrinking the size of the Windows partition. The
partition must be "clean", meaning that Windows must have closed down
correctly the last time it was used. It must also have been defragmented,
although this is not a guarantee that all files in the partition have been
moved out of the area that is about to be used. It is highly recommended to
back up your personal files.
Custom Disk Partitioning
This gives you complete control over the placing of the installation on your
hard drive(s).
If you are not using the Custom disk partitioning
option, then the installer will allocate the available space according to
the following rules:
If the total available space is less than 50 GB, then only one partition is
created. This will be the / (root) partition.
If the total available space is greater than 50 GB, then three partitions
are created
6/19 of the total available place is allocated to /
with a maximum of 50 GB
1/19 is allocated to swap with a maximum of 4 GB
the rest (at least 12/19) is allocated to /home
This means that from 160 GB or greater available space, the installer will
create three partitions:
50 GB for /
4 GB for swap
and the remainder for /home
If you are using a UEFI system, the ESP (EFI System Partition) will be
automatically detected - or created if it does not exist yet - and mounted
on /boot/EFI. The Custom disk
partitioning option is the only one that allows to check it has
been correctly done.
If you are using a Legacy (also known as BIOS) system with a GPT partitioned
disk, you need to create a BIOS boot partition if it doesn't already
exist. It should be about 1 MiB with no mount point. It can be created with
the Installer, under Custom disk partitioning, like any
other partition. Be sure to select BIOS boot partition
for
filesystem type.
See for information on how to proceed.
Some newer drives are now using 4096 byte logical sectors, instead of the
previous standard of 512. Due to lack of available hardware, the
partitioning tool used in the installer has not been tested with such a
drive.
Some SSD devices now use an erase block size over 1 MB. If you have such a
device we suggest that you partition the drive in advance, using an
alternative partitioning tool like gparted, and to use the following
settings:
Align to = MiB
Free space preceding (MiB) = 2
Also make sure all partitions are created using an even number of megabytes.