installing Linux but keeping Windows 98
 

I have a single hard drive but I had partitioned it into :
C:\ (5.14 GB free space) and
D:\ (capacity of 5.71 GB)
when I first installed Windows 98.

I want to install Redhat Linux 7 while keeping Windows 98. When I used the fips utility, I got a message about an unknown file system. Fips then stopped working. What causes it to display such a message and how can I partition my drive? Also, is it possible to install Linux into an existing Windows partition? (I am willing to erase any data on my second Windows partition i.e. D:\)

Thank you!

Re: installing Linux but keeping Windows 98
 

Yes, it's possible. Your 'scenario' is pretty similar to mine, that is, I installed Linux on my second partition. When you're running your setup, you simply have to specify that you want the Linux native on the second partition.

The setup will format that partition with the ext2 file system, and you're on your way.

As for your first question, someone much more able than I will answer that. :)

as you don't need a d: partions you can safely remove the /dev/hda5 during linux installation. and give some 150-200 MB space for swap also. you can use rest of the space for linux .

but i use only 1.8-2.5 GB for linux . if you are also interested to keep d: you can do this and allocate rest of space for d:

When you say RH7 is it 7.0? I installed 7.2 so I am going to assume that it is similar.

With your favorite partitioning program (FIPS for example) you can go ahead and create 2 partitions on your drive. Make one of them the size you want your entire Linux distro to use. Example: You have 10GB, you want windows to use 2GB and Linux to use 8GB, so you will partition 2 and 8, no more, no less... yet.
Go ahead and leave it FAT or FAT32 or whatever. The partitioning tool in RH will do the rest for you.
Once you have decided and made your 2 partitions (note the exact size of each), go ahead and reboot into your RH install. Go through the motions til you get to the partitioning point. Here is where you will need to know the size of your partitions. The one that you decided to let Winbloze keep, DO NOT TOUCH. The other is where you will want to put your partitions. You will want to make at THE VERY MINIMUM a / and a /swp But make sure you do this all on the NON WINDOWS partition. Then go ahead and choose to format them (should be something like /hda5 and hda6 or something like that).

Now you should be ready to move on. I think the problem you are seeing is when FIPS tries to resize your Linux partion, since (I think) FIPS can only see DOS and FAT partitions.

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I see I type too much. Nice short and sweet there sakeeb.
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