Dual Booting

Ok, I am a total noob at this kinda stuff. All I know is dual booting will let me run windowsXP and Linux (or whatever it is) off the same computer. I know it wont let me do it at the same time....and thats about all I know on this subject. What I need from you fine people here at Major Geeks is to help me on:

• What I need in able to do this.
• How SHOULD I do this.
• Anything else you feel I should know on the subject before attempting it.

All help is greatly appreciated.

 

To my knowledge, all it really takes is just two partitions. One partition you will have Windows on, the other Linux.

On your computer's startup, it will prompt you to choose an OS.

I've ran two OS's before, and to the better of my recollection, I believe that's all I did, hah.

PartitionMagic is good for partitioning, I know that much as well.

 

You will also need to install older windows systems first (ie in the partition order) and other o/s like Linux last.

You should also get yourself a boot manager which will allow you to select which o/s you can boot into. I think XP may do this but I use BootMagic which is part of Partition Magic.....

Seting up a dual boot system is not difficult but there are some proceedures which need to be followed.

My suggestion would be to select the 3rd party partitioning software which you are going to use and then to read the instructions. Thereafter you can ask further questions as to areas that you are unsure of.

Cheers

 

Agree, first of all it's is not recommended to install second OS on the same partition. Partition magic is good for partitioning but I use Disk Director partition manager. It's easier for me and it also contains its own multiboot loader that can help create dual boot environments in case you know little or nothing about it.
One more thing is you should rather install OSes in the special order (for Windows - in order from older to younger version, then Linux).
The thing is that earlier versions of Windows have less smart installers and they can set default its own loader that can ignore other OS. WinXP will allow recognizing only Windows family. And all modern Linux are soled with installers that allow choosing whether to install its loader and can find all installed operating systems.