Dual boot questions...

ok, I'm gonna do it...i'm gonna set up a dual boot system. It's gonna be WinXP/Suse 9.3 Here's are my questions.... I have two hard drives on my system...I was wondering if it was possible to install linux on one, and WinXP on the other, and dual boot that way? In theory it sounds simple, but I wanted to put the idea out there before I went and messed up my computer.
Also, if I DO install them both on one HDD, what is the best way to partition the drive? I've heard of people making 3 partitions, one for each OS, and then a shared space...bit Linux doesn't support NTFS really, correct?
You see, I started researching a while ago...and I found there was plenty of info available...so much in fact...that it all started to conflict with itself. I've read so many forums and so many articles explaining the "proper" way to do things, I've decided it's really just a load of crap, whatever works best on your individual system is what's best in any given situation.
What I'm looking for here is some advice from perhaps a veteran linux person who could give me some tips or pointers on setting this whole thing up for maximum compatability between Windows and Linux, as well as my local network. I'm not too worried about simplicity, I just want to know what I'm doing before I just into this head first.


Thanks,
koadmunki

 

It's easy enough to install each OS onto a diffrent HD. I'd recommend installing windows first as it's typically easier to dual boot this way, although you don't have to do it that way.

As for partitions, you have to remember a few things. windows has 2 partitions, and linux needs three partitions. This might confuse you a little. So to explain breifly, windows has an 8MB partition, which it uses itself. A windows user will NEVER see it, besides from one screen when installing windows, which most people don't even notice. It's important to know it's there when dual booting, because you'll actually be able to see it when using linux, so don't delete it.

linux itself has 3 partions, It has a boot partitons, a swap parition and then a data partition. If you're a little worried about how to set these up don't worry to much, as I'm fairly certain Suse's installer will offer to do it automaticly. Just make sure you point it to the blank HD. (I haven't used Suse myself, but most linux installers provide this option)

As far as NTFS support goes, linux kinda supports it. You can read ntfs drives pretty much flawlessly, although, I wouldn't recommend trying to write to an NTFS partition from linux until you get a little more comfortable with it. Support for writing isn't great yet and attempting to use it has a good chance of breaking the entire NTFS partion.

As for the dual boot itself, when installing linux, just install lilo or grub as your boot manager. Odds are the linux installer will automaticly notice windows is installed and add it to the list of bootable OS's for you. If it doesn't, you'll have to configure the boot manager once it's installed, but don't worry it's not too hard. (if it does recognize windows, it will most likely label it as a dos partition. It won't matter what it calls it though, and you can feel free to rename it if it bothers you).

 

Coco is right using 2 HDDs is best when dual booting. You don't have to make 2 partitions. Suse 9.3 will resize the XP partition and then create the second partition for itself. Place the GRUB/LILO boot manager on the secondary partition. Otherwise you are going to have boot problems. NLDR should be on the primary partition with XP. This way NTLDR has control of the boot process, and when you select Suse from the boot menu it will pass control of the boot process to GRUB/LILO.

And Yes Linux will read NTFS. It just won't write to an NTFS partition.

 

Here are some detailed instructions:

1. Use fdisk to partition your drive properly.

2. Install Windows 2000/XP on the first partition.

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

4. Make a boot disk during the Linux installation if possible so that you can boot into it.

5. Now boot into Linux and copy the boot image from the boot sector. To do this run: dd if=/dev/hdan of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1, where /dev/hdan is the location of /boot and /bootsect.lnx is the Linux boot image. Copy this bootsect.lnx file to a safe location where you can reach it using Windows.

6. Reboot into Windows 2000/XP and copy this bootsect.lnx file into the root directory (C:\).

7. Edit c:\boot.ini and append the following line: c:\bootsect.lnx="Linux".

8. Reboot your system and boot directly from the hard disk.

9. The Windows boot loader should now give you the option of booting into either Windows 2000/XP or Linux. Try booting into both of them to see if you were successful.

 

Hmm...sounds like a plan. I'll probably work on this tonight and I'll post any questions or results I have on here in case your interested ok? And thanks guys. I am using Suse 9.3...let's see how this goes...hehe...

 

Let me know it is working, Windows doesn't play well with others when 'Dual Booting'.

 

I've never had any trouble dual booting windows with linux myself. Of course I've never given windows control. I've always used LILO or GRUB as the primary boot loader. Mainly because they have MANY more options then the windows boot loader, so I always just confugred a windows thing in grub and then it goes there to pick which windows OS I wanted to load.

Of course it should work either way.

 

Some distros and Win 2000/XP just don't seem to work well with each other. Redhat, Fedora, Suse have widely reported this problem when installing and allowing GRUB/LILO to overwrite the MBR. Doesn't happen all the time but happens enough times that this appears to be the best way to get it to behave.

I would be interested in what your GRUB/LILO looks like. Could be a better solution.