V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

electricroo · 2026-03-18 13:48

I had been using V5 with no issues in a windows install on my old windows 7 laptop with the root disk size of 64GB. I installed V6 with a size of 64Gb and when choosing the full desktop profile I was getting a disk full error. I tried to install a few times with the same error. So I iwas able to install the minimal profile instead .After installation I checked the root.disk size and it is only 7GB. The size in the preseed.cfg is correct as to what I choose on install. So I tried different install sizes and the root disk is always 7GB.

q4osteam · 2026-03-18 13:56

Please choose 64GB, boot to the installed Q4OS system and run command in terminal:
$ df -h
and post back the output.

electricroo · 2026-03-18 15:15

Ok here it is

p1630@debian:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 933M 0 933M 0% /dev
tmpfs 193M 5.3M 188M 3% /run
/dev/sda2 202G 72G 130G 36% /mnt/host
/dev/loop0 6.9G 4.8G 1.8G 74% /
tmpfs 964M 0 964M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 8.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs 964M 1.4M 963M 1% /tmp
tmpfs 193M 80K 193M 1% /run/user/1000
tmpfs 1.0M 0 1.0M 0% /run/credentials/systemd-journald.service

q4osteam · 2026-03-18 15:57

Well, that seems really weird. What if you install again and select disk size somewhat less, so 30GB ? Is the result on "/dev/loop0" still 6.9GB ?

We would also need to get a debug information to be able to investigate the issue. Please attach the following logfile:
c:\users\<username>\appdata\local\temp\wubi-6.x-rev346.log

Last edited by q4osteam (2026-03-18 16:39)

electricroo · 2026-03-18 22:32

Attached is the log file that you requested. But while looking at the log I see the problem. When expanding the disk image, the installer is using the " fsutil file seteof" command which does not work in Windows 7. So how did V5 expand the root disk as V5 worked fine?

Attachments:

wubi-6.x-rev346.log, Size: 13.65 KiB, Downloads: 29

q4osteam · 2026-03-19 09:00

Yes, you are right, we also see the problem. We will now investigate a bit and post back.

q4osteam · 2026-03-19 09:16

Meanwhile, you can do the following as a workaround:
Run in windows terminal ~~powershell~~ cmd.exe as administrator:
> fsutil file createnew empty.bin 34359738368
> copy /b root.disk + empty.bin root_new.disk
> del root.disk
> ren root_new.disk root.disk
Remove the file "c:\Linux64\DebianS001\install\stp_disk1expanded.stp".
Reboot and post back the result

In any case, this is a Q4OS bug, as seteof is only supported on Windows 8 and later. The installer should still be able to expand the disk on Windows 7 as well, so we are currently investigating and working on a proper fix and will provide an update as soon as new information becomes available.

Last edited by q4osteam (2026-03-19 14:51)

electricroo · 2026-03-19 14:20

For some reason this is the error I get when trying to merge the files with the copy command. I'm not that well versed with powershell. See attached.. sorry file size was too big. View it here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s5NDVT … p=drivesdk

Last edited by electricroo (2026-03-19 14:44)

q4osteam · 2026-03-19 14:41

Please edit the post in question and attach the file.

q4osteam · 2026-03-19 14:49

Well, try it in cmd.exe instead of Powershell

q4osteam · 2026-03-19 15:28

We have new findings after testing the installer on Windows7. It worked out of the box on all tested machines, even though the `seteof` command always failed. However, this does not seem to matter, as the command is only required for Windows8+. Therefore, the issue in your case must be caused by something else. Is it possible that you are using a 32-bit version of Windows on a 64-bit PC ?

We would also suggest another attempt for installing Q4OS. Simply run the installer as usual, but after the installation is complete, and before the first reboot, delete the file `C:\Linux64\DebianS001\install\stp_disk1expanded.stp`. Then reboot and let us know the result.

We are still investigating…

electricroo · 2026-03-19 15:39

Yes you are correct. I have 32bit windows on this laptop. I am trying a re-install wit a 128GB size and will delete the stp file before the first reboot. Interesting that V5 works OK. Let you know shortly if it works

q4osteam · 2026-03-19 15:54

That looks like the internal utility "resize2fs.exe" what is part of the installer is crashing on your computer, this may be 32bit incompatibility. Thanks for letting us know.

In anyway the installer is not officially 32bit compatible.

electricroo · 2026-03-19 22:36

Deleting the file stp_disk1expanded did not work. But I have it working in an unorthodox way. I re-installed in windows 7 with 128gb size. I have tiny11 installed in virtual box in my desktop. I installed Q4OS there sized at 128gb. Before first boot I copied root.disk from virtual box to the windows 7 laptop. Deleted the stp files and rebooted. Now df - h shows the loop at 113gb. Installed the full desktop. Is there a different between the V5 and V6 installers that would cause this? Thanks again for the help!

electricroo · 2026-03-20 01:15

One last note. I re-installed V5 and paid attention to the first boot. I saw "resize2fs.exe" running resizing the root disk. I never saw it running when installing V6. Could be some quirk with 32 bit windows and the way the V6 installer works as you mentioned..

Ron

q4osteam · 2026-03-20 09:00

Thanks for the really valuable feedback. We will investigate, compare versions v5 and v6, and prepare a fixed testing version of v6 that would support 32-bit Windows on 64-bit machines. Would you be willing to test this v6.testing on your machine ?

Great that you managed to get v6 working in such a tricky way

electricroo · 2026-03-20 13:51

Yes, I can test it when it is ready. One thing I noticed is that V6 Trixie uses more memory than previous versions. I would suggest that it should be used with a minimum of 4gb. The previous version runs fine with 2gb ram on this laptop. I also have an old Alienware windows 7 laptop with 4gb ram. I can't remember if it is 32 or 64 bit. I can test it there also if it's 32 bit. I have a number of old ones. I used a small old 8" touch screen 2gb PC that was a medical device that I have mounted on an arm streaming music to my tube ampliers. Using Puppy Linux on that.

Ron

q4osteam · 2026-03-20 22:31

We have fixed the OP issue. V6 should now work as expected on 32-bit Windows running on 64-bit hardware, it resizes loop filesystem properly now. It would be helpful if you could try installing it on the computer in question and confirm or let us know if it still doesn’t work.

Note: the target Linux OS is 64-bit, so it will not work on 32-bit CPUs.

electricroo wrote:

One thing I noticed is that V6 Trixie uses more memory than previous versions. I would suggest that it should be used with a minimum of 4gb.

Yes, Q4OS-6 requires more RAM than Q4OS-5, however it's still usable on 2GB as well if you apply the Basic profile. We will consider an update.

electricroo wrote:

... I have a number of old ones. ...

Maybe an opportunity for really lightweight Q4OS Trinity edition

Last edited by q4osteam (2026-03-20 22:55)

electricroo · 2026-03-21 01:51

It installs correctly now. Thanks for the fix. As far as memory usage, this what I am seeing with 2gb ram.
Plasma Wayland - 1GB
Plasma X11 - 947MB at idle desktop
Trinity - 520MB
So Trinity is most efficient on 2GB and runs nice.
For years I had used Puppy in frugal installs in Windows similar to Windows Q4OS installs. Puppy was really the low resource Linux that I found that ran really well with no issues on any old windows PC until I came across Q4OS recently. The only thing annoying about Puppy is that a new Linux user may find it confusing to do a frugal Windows hard drive install and it seems disjointed to me because of how it's put together. Q4OS is nice and streamlined and would be very easy for a new Linux user to install and uninstall. Good job!
I'm going to replace Puppy with 32 bit Q4OS on that small swing arm mount PC that I stream my music from, mostly FLAC files. I'm retired so I have plenty of time to play around with these things. I'll be mentioning Q4 on my YouTube channel soon.
https://m.youtube.com/@electricroo/videos

q4osteam · 2026-03-21 09:40

Thanks for the update and for detailed reporting that lead us to fix the issue +1

Q4OS Forum

#1 2026-03-18 13:48

V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#2 2026-03-18 13:56

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#3 2026-03-18 15:15

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#4 2026-03-18 15:57

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#5 2026-03-18 22:32

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#6 2026-03-19 09:00

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#7 2026-03-19 09:16

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#8 2026-03-19 14:20

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#9 2026-03-19 14:41

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#10 2026-03-19 14:49

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#11 2026-03-19 15:28

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#12 2026-03-19 15:39

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#13 2026-03-19 15:54

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#14 2026-03-19 22:36

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#15 2026-03-20 01:15

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#16 2026-03-20 09:00

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#17 2026-03-20 13:51

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#18 2026-03-20 22:31

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#19 2026-03-21 01:51

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

#20 2026-03-21 09:40

Re: V6 for windows root disk wrong size after installing windows 7

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