Slack and XP
 

Hello,

I posted some message about partition problem some time ago....well that is now over phew!:D the problem was my kernel choice bare.i did not work for me so xfs.i was my solution.Thanx to all the dudes that helped.

Now i have a new problem, i am trying to install Slack on my work station. But i have XP running at the moment and i want to dual boot. When i boot from CD i see NFRS partition for windows with only about 8M of free space. I am really scared of changing the partition as i do not want to damage the XP:tisk: .

Do i really delete this NFRS partition and make linux ones to run XP and Slack? I cannot make new partitions with cfdisk within the NFRS partition except only within the 8M of free space....i even wonder where this comes from.

Thank you...

xmeson:Pengy:

?? NFRS?? Are you trying to say NTFS, perhaps? :D

You should **NOT** use cfdisk to modify the partitions!! If you use cfdisk, this will simply break all the configuration of your HDD and you will lose whatever information and docs you have on your Windows XP partition.

Use "fips" to resize the Windows partitions. It should be on your Slackware CD. On the other hand, I don't know if "fips" handles Windows XP partitions very well... Do read the documentation that comes with this program!

why not simply a buy a second HD ? it's cheap and safe...
dealing with NTFS partitions ( with important, yet not backed-up, data ) is the same of asking for trouble.

I suggest that you download BootitNG and resize your NTFS Partition. It's safe but I can't say it's 100% but it worked for me and I am running WinXP and Slack in the same HD.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com

im using win2k and slack 9.0, i simply splitted my harddrive with partition magic.. worked fine for me.

I second the reccomendation of going with a 2nd harddrive for Linux. I am so happy I did that, I have NO problem dual booting XP with Slack 9.0. I wanted to put both on the same drive but after much reserach on this forum, I decided against it due to OEM software etc(long story).

IF you truly only have 8MB of free space on your drive then you can't
install slackware anyways. I suspect you are seeing a small unused
space after your Win XP partition. When I did my last WinXP/Slack
dual boot, this is how I did it.

1. installed XP (this was done for me and assume I couldn't
touch it).

2. defrag XP in the windows tools (probably unnecessary), then use
partition magic (8.0 suggested) to shrink down the win XP partition
to make space for linux at the end. I don't think Gnu parted or
fips can resize NTFS filesystems intact.

3. I continued to use partition magic to make my linux partitions,
although its limited to ext2 or swap filesystems. that's ok, you
can reformat them later in the slack setup if you want reiserfs.
just get the sizes right as long as you're using the nice tool.

4. If you want to share Read/Write data between windows and
slackware, you'll probably want to make a Fat-32 partition and
assign it a windows drive letter. you can also mount this from
linux for writing. Don't make it an important linux partition --
Fat32 doesn't support linux owner permissions as far as know.
I do this because you can read the Xp NTFS partitions from linux
but not safely write. There are windows tools to do the same wrt
linux, but to safely share data R/W you need a format they both
can maturely write into.

5. Boot the slack cd and it should detect all your partitions (even
your XP partition). Don't make any mistakes in telling it your
partition numbers -- tell it what you expected to use them for
and it'll format them appropriately and write a working fstab.

6. After slack is set-up, i would suggest you don't let it run lilo
for you. you absolutely want to set-up lilo.conf correctly first.
DON'T LET IT WRITE TO THE MASTER BOOT RECORD on the disk (not
to /dev/hda for example) or to the windows partition boot sector
(probably /dev/hda1)! have it install to a floppy, or easiest,
to the boot sector on your /boot partition. don't mark the /boot
partition as bootable though (you can check with fdisk/cfdisk
that it isn't). the safest way to preserve the windows partition
is to let it remain the sole bootable partition and don't let lilo
touch it.

7. Run lilo, and copy the boot sector out of the /boot
partition to a floppy, or easier, to the Fat32 share partition
if you made one (you'll need to mount it first). for example,
with /boot on /dev/hda2, and the windows FAT32 partition on
/mnt/windows_d/, after lilo ran you could say 'dd if=/dev/hda2
of=/mnt/windows_d/bootlinux.ldr bs=512 count=1'. it doesn't
matter where you put the of, but we have to get it to the XP c:
drive eventually (write to linux file and mcopy, or mount dos
floppy and write to floppy, whatever).

8. When you're satisfied you have copied the boot sector onto some
filesystem that windows can read, boot into windows. put the boot
loader file somewhere (usually in c:\, c:\bootlinux.ldr for example).
Now edit your c:\boot.ini file to add the linux boot loader.
This is a hidden file, and its marked as a operating system file
so its doubly invisible in windows. you'll need to go to folder
options and uncheck hide op system files and check show hidden files.
Add the line to boot.ini like this: C:\bootlinux.ldr="Slackware
9.0 Linux". This tells the Windows NT/XP/2000 boot loader that
we have an alternative operating system and it will ask at boot-up
which one to load. You can go to a control panel in windows later
and set timeouts or default loaders (startup and recovery options
on some control panel). but for now, just get the record in there.

9. reboot. the windows partition will boot, the xp bootloader will
see that other op systems are available and will give a text menu
asking you to select. If you choose Slackware, it will grab the lilo
bootloader out of its directory and run it, transfering control to
lilo. Lilo will then load whatever you told it to (or run its menu).

I like this method because I can remove linux and leave the PC
with its original windows installation without fear that I may have
misplaced the original windows boot record. If you don't fully understand
this, don't fear. You can make quite a few mistakes and recover so long
as you don't ever tell Slackware setup to touch your Windows partition.
______
Bender

You can do the dd stuff right after your installation is successful withour rebooting. Therefore you don't have to worry booting from floppy.

What you can do is, after installing lilo (with the correct settings). Do a
df -h
that will tell you where is your hard drive mounted. (I can't remember now.)

Or you can mount your FAT partiton first, assuming at /mnt/windows_d,

just
dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/mnt/windows_d/bootsect.img bs=512 count=1

My point is, you can do this all after installing Slackware without rebooting.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I"m not saying you ever
boot from a floppy. I was suggesting you could use a floppy
to transfer the bootsector to Windows if you didn't have a
writeable Windows partition in your installation. I like to have
a FAT32 partition but there's not always room or need.
______
Bender

This is not entirely true. In the event that you overwrite the windows MBR, you can recover using either the Windows cd with the repair tools, or possibly with a recovery disk. I learned this first hand....I don't suggest you do however.

Or, you could just run the (undocumented) DOS command: fdisk/mbr which will restore the MBR to a Windows-friendly state.

Personally, with regards to the comments about whether or not to load lilo into the MBR, I have always allowed it to install in the MBR and have never had any issues whatsoever. Theoretically there is some level of risk in doing that, but at least in my own experience it has never happened. If you do install lilo in the MBR, then you similarly get a choice of which OS you want to load during boot-up. -- J.W.