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Old 11-06-2005, 10:04 AM   #1
RRepster
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dual boot advice needed


I have a spanking new Dell Dimension with a P4 2.8GHz HT EM64T 80GB hdd and 1.6 GB RAM. (mooohawww). My question is that despite all that horsepower it came with Windows Media Center 2005 (got this rig from their outlet, and added more RAM) which of course isn't using the 64 bit power.

I like to record my own tv shows and keep favorite episodes so I convert them from .mpg to .divx using the Divx converter program from www.divx.com which works relatively well except that its slow as mollasses. Like all the other editors and convertors I've seen in that $30 to $50 price range it isn't taking advantage of HT so I've thought of setting up a dual boot with a 64 bit OS such as Ubuntu 64, or Slamd64 (I've read Suse has crippled dvd and mp3 playability so thats out of the question) and then compileing a video editor such as kino or konverter so it can take advantage of HT & 64.

However, Dell has installed on the drive a hidden partition that is used to restore the OS to factory state in emergency (something I had to use in the first week I had it due to a nasty rootkit it caught). My question is will installing a dual boot ruin this hidden partition and ability to use it?

I've found one windows program that claims to take advantage of HT and that's by Cyberlink. I'm not wanting to do this to save money, it's that I'm sick of obscelence that comes with closed source.
 
Old 11-07-2005, 09:15 AM   #2
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Wait, man. I don't really see a question in your post. What are you asking?
 
Old 11-07-2005, 09:32 AM   #3
pritchardtom
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Re: dual boot advice needed

Quote:
Oringally posted by rusty_slacker
Wait, man. I don't really see a question in your post. What are you asking?
Quote:
Originally posted by RRepster
My question is will installing a dual boot ruin this hidden partition and ability to use it?
The question was there, it just took a while to ask it :-).

The partition from Dell is there to act, from what I understand, to be like a boot disk that you normally get from a manufactured built computer, with all the drivers on etc...

Therefore it should not really get effected if you do install Linux, however, and I cannot stress this enough, if you want to perform the Linux install with relative stress free, then please follow these instructions;

- Goto Dell

- Type in your "code" found somewhere on your computer (dell website willtell you where.

- Find all the systems drivers that your computer needs.

- Download them all, save them to disk.

- Backup everything you want on your system.

- Install Linux, but obviously not deleting the Dell partition.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you do the above you should be ok, and if the Dell partition does not like it, you have all your documents, and drivers safe, so you will be ok anyway.

But DO BACKUP. I cannot stress this enough. The number of people who do not back up when doing something as major as installing a second OS is incredible.

Let me know how it goes; Good luck ;-)
 
Old 11-07-2005, 10:19 AM   #4
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Thanks, I'll do that. And oh yes indeedy have I made the mistake of not backing up in the past. I use an external USB drive to hold all my documents and media files now for that purpose. (and for using with multi-os's since its Fat32).

What triggered my concern about this restore partition is that it showed up as a mountable partition in Live linux cd's on hda1 with the rest of Windows on hda2. I'm tempted to just add a second SATA drive and put it on that instead to be safe but I really only need about 10gig sliced off the drive to do this with since I can just use my F32 usb drive for files so that'd be kind of a waste of cash to do. This would all be so much easier if some company out there sold a program with the codecs and dvd playback (like you can get with linspire) so we're legal. Yea yea I know screw those monopolistic laws but you know what I mean.

I'll slap my partition magic on it and give it a whirl it's only a small slice I need anyway.
 
Old 11-07-2005, 05:14 PM   #5
pritchardtom
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Quote:
Originally posted by RRepster
I'll slap my partition magic on it and give it a whirl it's only a small slice I need anyway.
Ahh Partition magic. How that program has saved my life, well at least all my work once or twice. Good to use if it is the first time on for Linux, for obvious reasons that you can partition the drive in a nice user interface and see what you're doing before you install Linux on them.

Just post here again if you have more problems. Good luck
 
Old 11-08-2005, 12:16 AM   #6
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thx =) yea Part.Mag is a great program.
 
Old 11-08-2005, 05:53 AM   #7
YellowKnife
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if you install suse 10 64bit it will help you partition the drive, and no is should be fine and not hurt your restorer. Decause windows will never see the linux partition. Like if you make a 20gig linux partition windows will think you only have a 60 gig drive
 
Old 11-08-2005, 07:22 AM   #8
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ah cool it has a partitioner like Xandros does then.
Good to know, thanks!

Rob
 
Old 11-08-2005, 02:27 PM   #9
YellowKnife
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no problem at all
 
  


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