Hi,

I have Windows XP and 2000 installed and want to add linux to my os collection.

The Problem..

I had previously installed linux mandrake 10.0 ce two times but always blew up my windows (both)

The thing I want to know is "where do I go wrong?". By searching throughout the web I found out that I did something wrong in selecting my partitions. Can anyone please tell me what exactly I have to do when selecting my root partition?

I have one harddisk. In C: win 2000, in d: win xp.

Want to install mandrake in E:

C: D: and E: are abitrary. Don't use that nomenclature for Linux as it may be a bit confusing to some.

Rather you probably have this layout

On the PRIMARY MASTER drive

partition 1 contains Windows 2000
partition 2 contains Windows XP

Now here's the thing which probably caused you problems...

Linux must boot up from a PRIMARY partition.

When you have a large hard drive (as you probably do) with already allocated partitions, the Linux installer attempts to install Mandrake on a NEW logical partition on a new EXTENDED partition.

Unfortuately the bootloader can't load the kernel from this.

The kernel is found in /boot. In turn /boot is USUALLY found on the root Linux partition.

In turn the installer may create root "/" in the extended partition causing Linux to fail to boot up.

Oops.

Your best bet is to use partitioning software to permit you to create a small PRIMARY /boot partition of say between 32 and 64 MEGS, preferably "low" on the drive.

This may entail moving your existing partitions around a bit using software such as Acronis or Partition Manager, which can safely shove the data around.

During the setup make sure you MANUALLY adjust the partitions and that /boot is flagged as a PRIMARY partition (again preferably occuring early in the drive, though some indicate that this is not required...).

Then install Linux.

When you get to the boot loader, make sure that Lilo/grub is installed onto the MASTER BOOT RECORD.

GRUB/Lilo will intercept the bootup to present you with a menu of different OS's which you can load.

Using the above example you may end up with something like this...


On the PRIMARY MASTER drive

partition 1 contains /boot..................this will be /dev/hda1 under Linux mounted as /boot
partition 2 contains Windows 2000...this will be /dev/hda2 under Linux mounted as /mnt/windows
partition 3 contains Windows XP.......this will be /dev/hda3 under Linux mounted as /mnt/windows2
partition 4 contains the EXTENDED partition housing the new LOGICAL partitions for Linux

The logical Extended partition(s) may be laid out like this

partition 5 contains / (root) .............. this will be /dev/hda5 under Linux mounted as /
partition 6 contains /usr ....................this will be /dev/hda6 under Linux mounted as /usr

etc.

Gee thanks. Your rihgt, I DID install mandrake an an extended partition. I'll try your method (hope I don't mess up things again).