Dual boot configuration - Linux and XP Pro

[jetar]

Hey all,

I posted this at the XP forum but thought I would throw it here as well.

I have just gotten a new computer with 2 - 80 GB hard drives and what I am looking to do is install a dual boot configuration with XP Pro on one of the drives and Linux WS on the other. However I have never installed 2 operating systems on one maching before and want to be sure I go about doing this the right way or if this even possible.

Also, XP Pro is already installed on the machine and Linux will be going on second.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this or any resources on trying to mix these two OS's on one machine. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[pansophic]

I have run various versions of Linux with every version of Windows since 3.11 in a dual boot configuration. I have had few problems getting it to work, only finding a large enough disk on a laptop to effectively run both on a single disk. That is less of a problem now.

There is a Linux HOWTO for dual booting with Windows, which I found to work, but to be a sub-optimal approach. If Windows is already on your machine, you should be able to create a small Linux partition on your boot disk to boot from. 160GB is a lot of real estate, so you shouldn't have any problem creating a partion on the second disk for the majority of your Linux install.

Supposedly SuSE has a partitioning tool that doesn't force you to destroy your Windows partition when you repartition your boot disk. Otherwise, Partition Magic by PowerQuest is a great utility for modifying partition sizes without destroying data.

Good luck!


pansophic

 

[flugh]

Easy safe way to do it with two hard drives is leave the first one to windows, the second one for Linux. But like pansophic said, 80GB is a lot of space for your 'second' OS. I'd take a shot at partitioning the second drive, leave 40GB of it for Windows, the rest for Linux. That way, you are leaving the 'system' part of your Windows installation alone, never touching that drive (unless you install a bootloader like grub or lilo during installation). You can make a bootdisk during installation that can make it so you don't write anything at all to the 'system' drive, and never have to worry about mucking up XP.

If you're nervous about trying it out the first time, you can go so far as to unplug the first drive while you beat up Linux for a bit, and it will be impossible for you to endanger any of your Windows data

----
JBR

 

[twosank]

I have done this on a large laptop (AJP a.k.a Clevo, Sager 4760 and Hypersonic ZX7). I did it the expensive way by buying Partitionmagic 8. The instructions with Partitionmagic are pretty clear and Bootmagic (the app that boots when the machine starts up to choose the OS to boot) seems to work just fine. I loaded Suse Linux 8, with some trouble associated with the use of a multiprocessor kernel chosen by the installer. However, my advice is that, with care, you can get both existing XP and Linux dual booting. I am sure that there are cheaper solutions, but partitionmagic is pretty professional and, if you are nervous, does a bit of hand-holding whilst partitioning, setting up filesystems etc. Best of luck

 

[071]

Run it off VMWare. Great application that saves you having to partition your drive etc..I currently have Windows2000, XP and Red Hat running off it.
Partition magic can be a little messy.

Regards,
71



Cheers,
71