Hi,

I'm using Mandrake 9.0 and I'd like to install also Windows (for those who are wondering why, apart from a handful of Windows applications I need to use, I believe it will help me to take a few more "risks" now I'm learning about Linux to have a "back-up" system in case I need it urgently) The problem is, I'm not very proficient in using computers at this level, so my apologies if I'm asking really dumb questions... These are the tentative steps I've taken so far:

First, I tried to install Windows XP on a partition but I had several, serious problems with the NTFS formatting I couldn't figure out and the documentation I found about it seemed a bit hard to me. And anyway I don't like/need XP.

Now I'm trying with Win98 but it looks a bit more complicated in that I need to boot from a floppy (which I don't have) and some other similar details.

The reason of my post is that I was wondering whether it would be easier for setting a dual boot to use a spare hard drive I have, installing Windows on that. I haven't tried that yet, but I've found some threads where I saw that this has also some issues, although I didn't knew that could be done at all, so that's a start.

After a difficult adaptation, and now my Mandrake is working OK, I think I would only consider to remove it and install first Windows and then Linux if that would make a huge difference in terms of how easy is to do that.

Now, getting to the point: My question is, what do you think is the easiest path to follow for a truly newby person? I know it'll depend a lot, but what do you think are the difficulties I'm going to face in each case (so I can assess what may be the ones I could deal with)? I'm not asking you about how to actually do the installation (yet ), but if I have to do some serious reading I'd like to know which way I'm going to find less obstacles.

Cheers,

eneko

Do u want a hardisk each for linux and windows or u want to share a single hardisk for both windows and linux

Well, I'd want a hard drive for Linux and one for Windows if that would make the installation of Windows easier. Otherwise, I have plenty of room in my hard drive to install both Linux and Windows.

ok...the easiest way to do everything based on your setup
- backup!
-enter ure bios setup and set ure cdrom as the first boot device
ok based on the info ure partition right now is a linux partition.. boot from a xp or 98 cd and run fdisk to delete the linux partition and create one fat 32 partition
1)install whatever version of winslow, but preferably as a fat 32 file system. this is because linux cannot write to a ntfs partition and can only read from it. u also need to install winslow first cause billy goats software doesnt like recognizing other OS's if its installed last.(it overwrites the linux boot loader)
2)get partition magic and resize ure windows partition and make two linux partitions, 1 of them being whatever file system u want for linux(ext2,ext3, or whatever)...i prefer ext 3
3) the other linux partition shud be linux swap, whose size shud be double theamount of ure ram(preferably)
4)install mandrake...it shud configure everything automatically for u..


and lastly, buy a box of floppies.

Thanks, ganja_guru,... I'll see if an alternative to reinstalling Linux from scratch comes up, but if it doesn't, you made installing first windows look quite uncomplicated.

... Ah, and sorry for not being very clear, but when I said I have no floppy I meant I have no floppy drive, of course ; )

ure welcome...i think u should at least buy a usb floppy drive because i dont really trust bootable cd's..and never install linux qithout a boot disk, its just risky incase ure system screws up..and try slackware as an alternative to Mandy, cause u seem to have got the hang of linux...