somehow, fc2 was installed in a partition between disk c and disk f
of winxp. now i want to reinstall winxp, i wish i could keep fc2 system.
but is there anyway i can move it to another place such that i can
install winxp in a single partition?
what about creating an image of fc2 and restore it later?
if so, where shall i save the iso? is it possible to restore fc2 from
the harddrive? i have never done this before, so i have to be very
careful.

thanks for your advice.

without getting too involved, a second hdd with linux installed to it with lilo or grub installed to mbr, and a backup boot floppy made might work. copy the linux partition contents that you want to save to the second linux hdd install. disconnect the linux hdd, nuke, and format the winxp hdd, and install winxp. reconnect the linux hdd and boot up the linux partition on the second hdd with the boot floppy, and then you'll have to reconfigure where lilo/ grub is installed, and try and get it placed back to the first disks mbr.

a win98 start up boot disk can be used to wipe the mbr:
fdisk /mbr

winxp i believe has a fix mbr option when booting the install cd up, and choosing repair/ recovery option. this will wipe the mbr as well.

good luck with the above "maneuver". hopefully it will work

there is another option (probably tons of options, including forking over some money for packaged products at the comp store) using the copy command (cp) with the archive switch (-a). this will require partitioning, formatting, and mounting the second hdd, and then copying the contents of your linux partition to the second hdd. this will still require some work regarding editing your boot floppy to change the location of the linux partition to boot, and get boot loader back to mbr after winxp is installed, or edit the untouched bootloader in the mbr with the new linux partition to boot on the second hdd.

this can be quite frustrating to a newb- it was, and still is to myself. path of least resistance seems to be a reinstall. expert install is better so you're more in control as to what and where things will go. i started with redhat 7.3, and printed out the install guide to have handy during the install learning phase. this allowed for evaluation of options at each install step...


of course, you might end up reinstalling everything, so burning backup copies of all essential data will be an important step to not skip.

i would recommend a fat32 partition on the windows drive. this can be used to download iso, and backup files for both windows, and linux. this can be very handy to have. an ntfs (journalled) partiton for winxp, as well as a ntfs backup partition for xp can be handy as well.

in terminal type man cp- look at similar terms listed.

also man mount
man cfdisk (log in as root, or su to use it)

cfdisk /dev/hdb sould be sufficient to get the second hdd loaded so you can create the partitions, types, and write to partition table.

man make, and man fs should give some ideas on formatting linux partitions, and swap space.

hi len, thanks a lot for your reply.
before i proceed, i want to make several points clear:
1. seems that i could just copy my whole fc2 system to the
2nd hd. i do not remember where i installed grub on hd1.
later on copy everything back to a new linux partition in hd1,
is this what you meant? i have to reinstall grub after reinstalling winxp, right?

2. fdisk /mbr is the command to remove mbr from the machine, is this right? do i need to get mbr back when i install grub?

3. you recommended fat32, i know windows and linux can
read/write this file system. since i have been using ntfs for
a while, i wonder if it is relatively safe to write to ntfs partition
from linux system. i heard some sad stories while writting to
ntfs from linux.

appreciate it.

before you procede, get some second opinions, and give google a work out (STFW) to verify procedure. there are many ways to do things, and some might have better/ simpler methods.

bootloader can be installed to a number of locations. it will probably get wiped out from the mbr, if it was placed there originally when winxp is reinstalled. best to place grub on a floppy diskette, as this will allow the linux partition to be booted up. then you can add grub to the mbr (c partition, or /dev/hda1 depending which os you reference) from within redhat at a later stage after the install.

i think samba is one of the ways to write to ntfs from linux. a fat32 partition can be handy to have. it won't have any security that ntfs will have, and isn't journeled. there might be apps for adding security to fat32, but i'm not certain.

from my own experience, and you'll probably see that others state something similar- linux, and windows on the same hdd can work, but there might be some specifics that need to be addressed that have elluded myself. most of the time, things would work for a while, but windows would go psycho after a couple of months, and screw up the linux partitions through chkdsk on reboots. i think it has to do with how the partition table is written to from windows, and linux, and how windows labels partitions, and how the partition letters get moved around when changes occur.

greatly appreciate your suggestions.
btw, my windows and linux have been getting along
well for 2 years on my machine