I have windows xp installed on my computer right now. I wanted to partition my drive (60gig hd) and load linux red hat 8.0 on to it so i can have a dual OS. I already have red hat 8.0 but how would i partition my drive and actully run Dual OS's on my computer.. Heh i kno this a noobish uestion but what the heck. When installed... how would i change the operating systems like go from linux to windows and windows to linux?

Thanks in advance for the info...


P.S. MICROSOFT SUCKS!

Welcome to LQ,
Well MS might suck, but you don't do your homework well - there is a search button up in the right corner - very handy, isn't it?
P.S. I might sound offencive but I don't mean to, there are at least 3 threads a week dedicated to dual-boot issues, so chances are you'd be up and running w/o even asking questions if you read the threads and search, when there is a real hurdle that you cannot comprehend or get around with even if you've searched then ask your question. For now, take these magic keywords - LILO, GRUB, dual boot, http://www.google.com/linux , http://www.tldp.org , search LQ

You would need to repartition your hard drive so both OS's can reside on it. If you already have Windows XP loaded and you don't want to reload it to do the repartitioning, then your going to want to look into a program like Partition Magic or something similiar.
Well, to switch between OS's, you have to usually reboot and then when you have two OS's on one machine, you'll usually have a boot loader. When your computer boots up it will start the boot loader where you can decide and pick what OS you will boot up.

This is asked all the time like neo stated, you can find lots of information even here at LQ by doing a search. That's what I would recommend doing first, then if you have questions, then ask away..

I did what u said. I searched the site and have read thru what you told me to read through but i still dont understand. I know that this sounds noobish but thats why im on this fourm. heh. Could you explain to me how I would partition my drive and then install linux on that drive (Red Hat 8.0). If you could or direct me to a manual or something that would lead me in this procees step by step that would be great.

Thanks in Advance!

Get Partition Magick it will work and it has a easy to use GUI.

I have also heard there is a free program called Ranish Partition Manager or something along those lines that can partition NTFS partitions. Might be something worth checking out.

That's your first obstacle, from there it's pretty much all down hill. But yeah, get it partitioned (or best of all, wipe out your XP drive ) and then you can install RH, put LILO on the MBR (don't worry about what I type, it will all make sense in a little while ) and then dual boot with ease.

Cool

This is how I would do it which I believe is the least painful way.

First backup any data in your Windows XP OS that you want to backup.

Then reinstall XP, creating a partition of say however much you want allocated for it. Say you have 60 GB and you want 40 GB for you XP system, then create just a 40 GB space for it.

After getting XP installed and setup, now boot and install Linux with the remaining space left, creating your partitions with the leftover allocated space.

There you go, the least painful way of installing a dual boot system. Sure it might be a tedious way to do it, but it's going to be easier than say you looking for documents and a program to resize your existing parition, which might just take you longer and then installing Linux on the newly resized leftover partition you created that way....

This is how I do it at least, cause with both ways, you still most likely need to backup any data if something wrong happens during the process.

ok... I decided I don't want to mess anything up and since im not that good w/ Linux actully im pretty bad right now im gonna do Knoppix which loads it off the cd... so no partitioning required. But I have a problem w/ it. When i reboot and try and get my dos promt menus up to change my BIOS to boot from a cd i only get the menu where it says:
Safe Mode
Safe mode w/ Cmd Prompt
etc.... U kno the deal.....

How do i get the other menu up?

You can't do that from the DOS prompt menus, you need to get into the bios. Most bioses have a message come up onscreen about pressing a key to enter setup, [del], [F1], [F10} are common choices.

Ok... I did the bios things but im really confused on what files are needed. You can find the web site at http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

I d/l a ton of files actully 1.6gigs of files and I dont know if im missing some or have 2 many and then they saw to put it on 1 disk... 1.6-7 gigs on a disk even compressing it its still over what i can burn..... can any1 help me please! lol

Im really confused... Thanks

ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/linux/knoppix/

There is 1 link...

Here's straight to the iso:
ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/linux/knoppix/...11-2002-EN.iso

You don't need "all the files" for the normal use.

Cool

Thanks for the links but which files do i d/l exactly? I have:
KNOPPIX_V3.1-08-11-2002-DE.iso files
KNOPPIX_V3.1-08-11-2002-EN.iso files

Everything at ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at for Knoppix I have d/l and have in a folder.

What do I put on the Disk / How do i put it on?

I already set up my bios for cd-rom boot disc. Its just a matter of putting what is needed onto the disc.

EN is the english version...

Oh and you only need 1... it's an iso file.

Ok then... I don't need nay other files? I burned the .iso on to a disk and i also made a data cd w/ the iso busted open. So i made 2 cd's not sure which would work. I set up my BIOS to boot off the cd-rom but when the disks are in... It reads them and then loads back up into windows xp. I tried both disks and it did same for both... Thats why I asked that question... So it reads the cd but it does not load it.
The .iso is 696MB. When I went to Knoppix site they say that the cd should have 1700mb...? I was curious so i went to where you can order a cd. (CheapBytes) ... It was on 1 cd but was compressed to hold 2gigs on the cd..... So I don't kno if I need more files on my disk or what to get it to boot properly off the disk.

Thanks