Partitioning
In this screen you can see
the content of your hard drive(s) and see the solutions the DrakX
partitioning wizard found for where to install
Mageia.
The options available from
the list below will vary depending on your particular hard drive(s) layout
and content.
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!
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.
Erase and use Entire
Disk.
This option will use
the complete drive for Mageia.
Note! 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.
Custom
This gives you
complete control over the placing of the installation on your hard
drive(s).
Some newer drives are now using 4096 byte logical sectors, instead
of the previous standard of 512 byte logical sectors. Due to lack of
available hardware, the partitioning tool used in the installer has not
been tested with such a drive. Also some ssd drives now use an erase block
size over 1 MB. We suggest to pre-partition the drive, using an
alternative partitioning tool like gparted, if you own such a device, and
to use the following settings:
"Align to" "MiB"
"Free space preceding (MiB)" "2"
Also make sure all partitions are created with an even number of
megabytes.