Hi, I am going to format my entire harddisk and install mandrake

I wonder is it possible if I install mandrake first, then install XP, I can have a dual boot system with both mandrake and XP.

Or I must install XP first in order to have a dual boot system.

Thank you!!!

You will have to install XP first but make sure you partition your drive of leave space for Mandrake. I'm not sure if resizing with Mandrake will jack up your system but it did jack up mine.

If you don't want to complicate yourself, install windows xp first. But you can also install them backwards.

I have a similar question.

I have XP on one drive.

Last night, I completely unplugged that drive so it wouldn't be recognized and plugged in a second drive and installed Mandrake 10.0. I wanted the install to be completely clean and separate from XP, in case I had any of the noted problems on this forum and needed to go back to XP easily. This is the first time I've tried a Linux OS, so I was trying to be very careful.

There were only two minor errors on install: 10.0 not finding my sound card (even though Mandrake LiveCD did) and a really dumb error I made by putting the bootloader on a floppy (thinking it meant 'boot disk'). This is now resolved and the install process was a charm. I'm very impressed.

Now, to move between XP and Mandrake, I just unplug one drive and plug in the other.

My question:
Given how I've set this up, is there a way to *add* a dual-boot option now between drives?

Thanks,
Rory

P.S. And when I booted back in to XP from 10.0 with KDE 3.2, I have to admit, XP's desktop looked really old and tired. A by-product of essentially being a monopoly... for now.

ok just to add to the complication i have a linux only box and because of work requirements i need to install win2k i have another drive i can use to install windoze onto but do i do this first before i reconfigure grub for dual booting a system that as yet does not exist and after the addition of the new drive which will be on first ide port set as primary booting from first sector of first bootable partion as windoze demands ,then linux will be on slave drive which is no problem for booting linux i guess it depends on if win2k can detect that linux is on the slave drive to set up dual booting .... ?