I want to set up a redhat 9 - win98 dual boot system sharing a 80 GB hard disk. The redhat documentation tells me to first install win98 without worrying about partitions and later using redhat's parted to shrink the win-partition to make room for linux (which is to me using win-fprot to partition first).

Yet:
1. Why should i do that on an empty harddisk? Isn't it possible to partition first and than install win in one of them rather to let win-fdisk create one big partition and shrink it later?

2. If I partition in order to install win98 first: Should i do it with the win-fprot or with the one from my redhat-install-cd?

As i rarely will use windows i want linux to be resident on the fastest part of the hard-disk, so i plan to:
- create a primary partition (bootable) of only one GB to install windows
- create a second large one to later install linux of 70 GB and at the end of the harddisk
- create a third partition of 9 GB as windows data-partition

What do you think of this idea? Any problems to be expected?
Does this partitioning system mean create three _primary_ ones?
Will ancient win98 be able to access the 9 GB data-partition at the end of a 80 Gig harddisk?

Thanks for any hints and help

Kris

1. Yes - you can partition first.

2. The partitioning software doesn't matter - I use Partition Magic, myself.

Your partitioning plan looks more or less like mine - except substitute Win2K/XP for 98. I did it by installing Win OS, use PM to edit the HD to have a fat32 data partition and a blank partition for Red Hat, then I installed Red Hat.

As far as the question of 98 seeing the 9GB partition - I think 98 will see it all, but it may be worth googling for the answer.

1. well i guess they're just going from the angle of getting windows on there first... what i'd probably suggest is just use dos fdisk to create the right sized windows partition in the first place, as you'll be in windows world for that time anyway, and then create the rest of the partitions at redhat's leisure.

2. well performance wise i doubt there's really that much to gain from splitting it. but if you want to basically use the 2nd fat32 part as a shared area, then that's fine really. you wouldn't need three primaries, the windows fat32 will be fine in an extended area.

not sure if you're aware or not, but going by what you've written, linux will not use just one partition. especially if you are after a system of that size, you'll probably want a /boot, a / a /usr a /home and also a swap partition too. i'd suggest making /boot and / primary and sticking any others in extended space.

So you suggest to partition with the dos f-disk on the win98-cd creating just one primary bootable fat32 of 1 Gig and leave the rest unpartitioned. Later I create the linux partitions _and_ the second fat32 during the redhat install procedure?

So can rh9 create fat32 partitions? I have the option to create vfat-partitions during installation, is this the same as fat32?

Kris