Series 9: dual boot Windows and Linux

So I got my NP900X4B yesterday, and I've been cautiously planning my disk setup. My goal is to dual boot Fedora, and having two operating systems on the 128GB SSD will require minimizing the amount of software bloat.

The laptop didn't come with too much bloatware, but they didn't plan implement IRST very well. Windows automatically creates the hibernation file hiberfil.sys, roughly equal in size to the amount of RAM installed. This file is made redundant by the IRST partition and the fact that Windows doesn't hibernate on systems with more than 4GB of RAM. So with 8GB of RAM, 16GB (IRST partition and hiberfil.sys) of a non-expandable 128GB SSD are unusable. Add that to the 20GB recovery partition and you're out 36GB, leaving ~92GB of usable space.

I like the idea of IRST and would prefer to keep it. I read over in this post the two methods for dealing with IRST and I think I'm going to do a non-OEM reinstall and create my partition table from scratch.

Most of the included Samsung software seems to just manipulate Windows settings; how much hardware/software functionality is tied into the OEM version? Do I need to use Samsung Restore software and save Software/Drivers or can I get what I need off the net?

I'm thinking the best of plan of attack for dual booting Fedora and Windows with IRST would be to:
1. Delete the OEM partition table. This will scrap the recovery partition, so I saved a byte-by-byte image of the entire SSD to external storage using dd. This way I can do my own factory reset if need be.
2. Install non-OEM Windows on a new partition, leaving space for the rest.
3. Install IRST.
4. Install Fedora.

 

I would use the Samsung Recovery Solution to make a backup of all the software and drivers onto DVD and/or a flash drive. Running secSWMgrGuide.exe on that backup loads the Samsung Software Manager which makes it easy to install the essential drivers but you can choose what to load. Almost all the files on that backup are separately available to download although I haven't seen the Samsung windows themes elsewhere.

I'm puzzled by your statement that Windows doesn't hibernate with more than 4GB RAM. I've had no problems with the normal Windows hibernation when using 6 or 8GB RAM. It just takes an increasingly long time, even with an SSD. Hiberfil.sys will be redundant once you have IRST installed.

John

 

I read it somewhere, so who knows if there is truth to it or not. My new 15" doesn't have a hibernate option listed in the shutdown options, so I assumed there may be some truth to it.

Now I'm just trying to figure out how to make a Windows 7 disk bootable on a USB drive.

 

Samsung's factory installation should not include the hiberfil.sys file unless they have been careless. However, a new installation will create one automatically and it is easiest if you then remove it by disabling Windows hibernation before installing IRST. I assume that your NP900X4B has an 8GB hibernation partition.

One of the suggestions in this thread might work. In fact, a lot of the discussion about the NP900X3B is relevant to its bigger sibling.

John

 

If you are trying to store a Windows 7 bootable image on a storage device other than the internal mSATA SSD, that is certainly possible. Do some Bing and Google searches for "boot from VHD" and some other similar search strings.

In essence the VHD file is a container for the entire Windows 7 environment. Is is not a virtual machine and thus emulating a machine profile. It uses the actual hardware when booted.

 

Figured it out, after trying to do modify and dump raw data in Linux I found an easy way for Windows: Maximum PC | How To: Install Windows 7 from a USB Key!

As to the hiberfil.sys, I can confirm that my main desk runs 8GB ram, and has no access to hibernation in power controls. However, unlike the NP9004XB, there were a few hibernation settings I could edit through advanced power settings. Who knows, I'm to lazy and busy setting up fresh Windows, IRST and then Fedora