Hey guys,

I'm new to Linux and linuxquestion.org. I don't know if this question asked before but I couldn't find the exact answer in any site. Ok now my question is I want to make dual boot with win xp and suse 9.2. I have two hard drive. My first hard drive was partitioned 3 parts. which is C:,D:,E: I have windows xp on C: and I have some data in D: and my E: is Empty. Now My First question : Is it possible to install suse 9.2 specifically on E: drive. If it's now possible, My Second question : if I leave suse 9.2 to install and partition by its own, is it going to delete my data on C: and D:? Please someone help me. I have Suse 9.2 pro and I'm afraid to install weather I loose my data. Thanks in advance.

LaNKaN.

I have Suse 9.1 and XP installed on seperate drives. You will lose nothing, as long as you make sure you are installing Suse on the drive you think you are installin it on. Use the Suse installer and examine the partitioning it recommends in order to be sure.

Thanks for the reply. Well when I use Suse installer it doesn't say the dive names. It shows me hda1, hda2.... it doesn't show the name like C: or D:. So is there any way to identify it?

Unix based systems identify hard drives with the hdaN nomenclature. hda0 is the first drive, hda1 is the second, etc. If you installed Windows with the defaults, your Windows "C:" partition should be "hda0". Be sure this is correct! (Perversely, I installed Windows on my "F" partition, and I almost screwed myself.)

I installed Windows on an NTFS partition, and set up a second FAT32 partition for it and Linux to access. The Suse install partition description should tell you which partition is NTFS (or FAT32), and you can double check that way. If you are truly frightened, by a partitioning tool, like Partition Commander or Partition Magic. That can help you undo many mistakes, and you can perform the logical formatting using them, which will make it even easier to identify your drives.

BTW, this sounds like one of the few questions the Suse "customer support" will actually support. (Yes, I'm frustrated with their so-called "support".)

Hi There;

If you have Partition Magic handy, just run PM under Xp and ask PM to creates Linux, and swap partition on what ever drive you want Linux to be installed then ask PM to format that drive before you start your SuSE 9.2 installation.

If you do that SuSE will find your Linux partition and install itself on to the right drive (your C: D: E: or Z. Hope this will help.

Ok, If I change one of my drive to linux format and install suse on that drive, do I able to run windows programs on suse? Because I want to access some windows programs on suse I think suse let me to run windows appz. But I don't know if I change my drive to linux format, it will be able to access files from Fat32 format which is my windows drive?

you will be able to access them, but you can't run windows applications under linux if that's what's you 're asking. to access a fat partion you just have to mount it. if you make a dual boot then why don't run windows applications under windows

Well what if i want to use ms word or listen to music, I don't want to reboot everytime. well if I can access then it's very confortable to me.

Linux has plenty of software for playing CD's. Unfortunately, Suse doesn't ship them fully enabled. I haven't tried, because I still can't go on-line . Still, even without using my Linux box on-line, I managed to get my DvD player going, once in 64 bit, and again after I installed the 32 bit version. (There are no drivers for my ATI for the 64 bit OS. so I switched to the 32.)

As far as word is concerned, why bother? Just use open office. Word will be able to open it. I believe your version of Open Office should be able to handle anything but an Office 2003 version of a Word document.

i couldn't have said it better myself...