Running Windows XP and Linux on One Computer

Ok so i am interested in putting another operating system on my new computer at home.

The computer has a 250gb hard drive and is running on XP sp2. It has two patitions at the moment: The main Windows partition, and a small 5gb partition for Windows recovery.

Ideally i would like to make another partition and run Linux Mandrake on this. Maybe about 20gb for the linux partition, and have the option at boot up of whether i want to load linux or windows [i think its called Dual Boot].

Im new enough to this so i dont know much about partitioning hard drives, and my only linux experience is from using Live CD's.

I wonder if somebody would be able to post a step by step guide of what i need to do.

I have Partition Magic 7 downloaded so i hope to use this to make the partitions required.

Any help will be appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

JmK

 

I believe mandrake has a fairly simple installer. ALthough I haven't used that distro in awhile. So essentially all you'd have to do is make the partitions or even better would be to leave about 10 gigs (minimum) of unpartitioned space and let the linux installer partition/format it.

Just remember, typically linux uses 3 separate partitions. One is for the swap file, one is for the OS and everyhting else. The thrid is the boot partition. Boot is usually made at roughly 100megs although, you don't strictly need it. The swap partitions is usually about double the amount of ram, and the third partition is the remainder.

Ultimately for a first time user like yourself I'd just set aside some unpartitioned space and launch the linux installer. It should have an option to auto partition unused space.

 

Installing Linux is a fairly straight forward procedure. However when trying to create a dual boot system of Windows/Linux you could encounter problems.

Dual Boot Windows XP & Linux
​

1. Use QTParted from the Knoppix Live CD to reduce the size of your Windows partition and create an ext2 partition in the now unused drive space. 10Gb should be sufficient for Linux.

2. Start your Linux Installation and install the /root directory into the third partition. Install GRUB/LILO into the first sector of your boot partition (usually /boot) and NOT in the MBR.

3. Reboot into Windows XP.

4. Download & install Bootpart.

NOTE: Install Boot part to C:\BootPart

When you run it, you get a report like this:

Physical number of disk 0: ffff6a32
0 : C:* type=42 , size=22659651 KB, Lba Pos=63
1 : C: type=42 , size=17358232 KB, Lba Pos=45319365
Physical number of Disk 1 : ca1dca1d
2 : D: type=83 <Linux native>, size=6184993 KB, Lba Pos=63
3 : D: type=82 <Linux swap>, size=522112 KB, LBA Pos=12370050
4 : D: type=83 <Linux Native>, Size=1542240 KB, LBA Pos=13414275
​

NOTE: If you have a hidden recovery partition then you will have 0:, 1:, & 2: for Windows and 3:, 4:, & 5: for Linux.

5. Since Lilo/Grub was installed in the first Linux partition, the command for modifying BOOT.INI in this example is:

C:\BootPart\bootpart 3 bootlinx.bin Madrake Linux

Your boot.ini should be similar to this one:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
C:\BootPart\bootlinx.bin="Mandrake Linux"​

 

COCO, What do you mean by leave aside some unpartitioned space.......Just install the linux OS without making any partitions??

Will this automatically give me the option of which OS to boot at boot up??

 

Partition Magic is a beautiful thing when it comes to resizing partitions. I have two computers on my desk, one has XP/2000 and the other has Win98/Linux. The two computers are linked via a KVM switch which is a whole different animal.

 

What I meant by leave some unpartitioned space is exactly that. Don't format a section of it. It's by far the best move you could make as a beginner in the linux world.

It will of course be formatted when you install, the installer for linux will mention it and then most likely format it as ext2 by default. Which is what you want, it is also something you can't do with partition magic anyways. So if you want to leave 20 gigs for linux to use, just leave it as unpartitioned/unformatted and the linux installer will see it and take care of formatting/partitioning it for you.

You could of course read and attempt to follow what Shadow_Puter_Dude posted. Of course my guess is you'll find what he said a little confusing and it isn't really important to be able to follow everything he said right now, you'll learn most of it once it's installed, so for the first install I'd just trust the installer. The only part you really should concern yourself with is don't install lilo/grub to the MBR (Master boot record). And don't worry, odds are there will be a check box you can tick to install it there. Of course even if you do put it into the MBR it's not the end of the world. The computer will most likely still work just fine, it's just a little harder to recover if you mess something up later on.

Lilo/Grub are two common boot managers. They are what will let you pick windows or linux when you boot up. Either chocie is fine, I personally use Grub, but there is nothign wrong with lilo.

 

COCO, So you think i should just leave my computer as it is. I think i have a bout 150Gb free on it at the moment and install the linux OS without doing any partitioning fist. Should i defrag the system first? and maybe do a disk cleanup.

Shadow_Puter_Dude's guide will prove useful but when it comes to all the programming language im a bit lost....

 

Coco's not talking about free space he's talking about unused space. Your current partition uses all the drive space. You have to reduce the size of the Windows partition, leaving at least 10Gb of the drive unused.

 

If you want to think of it in other way. Simply make another partition for linux be it 10 or 20 gigs and then don't format it. Just leave it alone as a blank partition (windows will not see it in my computer). Just a nice piece of completely blank unused HD space.

 

COCO, I understand now. I just dont format that space that i partition, and then select that partition to install linux to....right?

I presume partition magic will give me the option of creating a partition and not formatting it?

 

I don't know, I've never used partition magic. Typically this sort of thing would be done prior to installing windows and some space would have been left untirely unpartioned. Editing partitions is frowned upon because it's known to cause problems so I'm not entirely sure what partition magics features are.

I can tell you one thing. Partition magic is not going to be able to format any kind of partition you can use with linux. So just give it a go and see what you can get. Ideally you don't even really want to partition the blank space for linux, it would be best to simply have completely unused and unpartitioned space on the drive, but just do as best as you can with partition magic. So long as you can at least pick it out from the currently used windows partitions that SHOULD be good enough to let linux sort it out properly.

 

@ Jam_Master_K there is a reason why Partition Magic is so lovingly referred to as 'Partition Tragic'. Just follow the directions I posted earlier in POST #3 of this thread. Except when you use QTParted to reduce the size of your windows partition, leave the now empty partition unformatted. There are no Programing commands in my instructions, at the risk of sounding crass, if you can't handle the Command Line, then Linux is not for you.

 

1. Use QTParted from the Knoppix Live CD to reduce the size of your Windows partition and create an ext2 partition in the now unused drive space. 10Gb should be sufficient for Linux.

i followed the link and agreed to the agreement. what loaded next looked like text with links. i did not see a way to download. what did i miss?

 

okay, found the link...can i load this to a 1g flashdrive instead of a cd?