hi guys

i have a pc with two hard drives

hda 40 giga

hdb 40 giga

i installed windows xp pro and windows server 2000 in hda after i split the hard drive to two portions c: and d:

now i am planning to install linux in the second hard drive, i want to install redhat and mandrake in the second hard drive so i have some quations regarding this matter:

1- is it possible to install two linux os in one hard drive or it is better to divid them to two portion ?

2- how can i divid the hard drive using redhat or mandrake?

3- do you think every thing will be fine, i mean it will boot to all the operting system that i have ?

4- is there any addtional thing i have to do to make every thing work fine?

any one can help ...

thanks

1) yes it's possible. I've seen a few posts from users with as many as 5 distros on one computer.

2) you need a minimum of 3 partitions to install 2 linux distros: 1 partition for each distro and 1 partition for swap. the swap should be equal to or greater than the amount of ram you have installed. If either RH or Mandrake are anything like SuSE, when you have the install cd up and running, you should be prompted to designate the disk to install to, and you should have to opportunity to partition and format that disk. If not, install one and use it's partitioning tools to resize the partition it created to make room for the next distro.

3) When I installed SuSE on my box, it found my windows partition and wrote the necessare /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/grub.conf to boot windows, no probs. YMMV.

4) depends on whether or not 3) works OK.

to be on the safe side, make sure you have a working windows boot disk handy in case things go wrong and you can't boot windows. When you install Linux, make a boot disk for that, too.
before you install Linux, decide if you want the Linux bootloader to write to the MBR. If it does, windows won't be bootable unless you use the boot disk, until you get the Linux bootloader configured to boot windows. if you choose to not install the Linux bootloader to the MBR, you will need a Linux boot disk to boot Linux, or set up a Linux folder in the primary windows partition with a Linux bat file, loadlin, and a copy of the compressed kernel image to boot Linux from windows.

thanks for helping

now i need to know how can i install the two linux system in my pc

if there is a information about this it will be helpful or can any one explain with details how can i install them


thanks

no one can help me


up

up

hi again

i have installed linux redhat in my second hard drive ... so now i have three operating system installed ..... windows xp and windows server 2000 in the first hard drive while redhat is installed in the second drive and everything is fine .....during installation of redhat i choose to put the bootloader in the mbr of windows in the first hard drive and when ive restarted my pc a screen came up to chose betweem the os.

now i am planning to install mandrake in the same drive of redhat ..... the partition of the second drive as following:

hdb1 /boot ext3 ......size 102 mb
hdb2 / ext3......size 38084 mb
hdb3 swap....size 1020 mb

so how can i install mandrake and use this partition .....please i need your help guys



thanks

guys where are you

up

Just install Mandrake, it will give you all the options for which partition to install to. Make hdb2 its boot partition and hdb3 its swap partition. Should work fine.

thanks aiims1777


now mandrake installation asks for / partition ......

as i said in redhat it is 38084 mb .....now can i resize it for mandrake with out loosing redhat??

or should i resize the partition for mandrake??

and do you think it will recognize the pervious operating systems??


thanks guys

guys any helpful info