Hi everyone very cool forum

Ok here's my problem. Im running WinXP pro and i decided to load Turbo linux. So i got partition magic and partitioned off 13gig for linux ext3, also out of that a 2mb swap drive.
All ok , restarted computer and UHH no win xp kicked in.Said no operating system found.So i thought i'll be clever and load turbolinux instead, started to load ask about dual boot i said yeh between winxp and linux.All going ok then restarted and nothing yet again no operating system found. So i formatted my 80gig hd and cut it into 2 so i have 2 40 gig hd's.Put winxp be back on. Now i want to cut my second partioned drive in half again to put linux on.
Where am i going wrong.

If you have two paritions now with XP loaded on one, now just start the Turbo Linux install and you can create partitions for your different directories/mount points from there.

And please create a bigger swap space than 2mb, that would be really useless.. at least 100mb will do ya good..

Thats a quick response thanks, im worried about messing up boot record again.Is turbo linux good what would you rate the best linux to use please !

You can always use fdisk /mbr from a dos prompt to fix your master boot record.

On another note, i never used turbo linux but found Mandrake a good distro to start with, after that i moved to Redhat

What version of Turbo Linux is it? If its the latest version shouldn't be too bad to use to learn with. You could however go with a more popular distro like Mandrake or Redhat, which are fairly easy.

During the install it should ask if you want to install a boot loader, setup a boot disk, etc. You should be able to install Lilo to your MBR, after doing so you can go into Linux and edit the lilo.conf file in /etc to make sure it has Windows as an option as well, etc.

Post back if you need more explanation or help.

Right off to get redhat linux , i find that turbo linux is a bit old I have all the manuals and disc but its been in my brothers draw for ages.This is what inspired me to try linux.Plus i keep hearing good comments on linux.
I'll be back!!

Yeah, older versions of Turbo were hard at times to get installed properly or going. I actually started off with Turbo myself and its been probably 4 years since I've touched it even. The hardest part about Turbo was getting X working.... You'll probably be better off using Redhat or Mandrake, its up to date and easy to get going.

Ref: SWAP DISK - I am uncertain if things have changed but one used to say the swap drive should be twice the size of the physical RAM memory

People in this forum really respond quick im flabbergasted
My next question is:
is redhat linux free

Sure, you can download the iso's from many sites. One of the most popular is at www.linuxiso.org where you can download the iso images and then burn them into install cd's.

Thanks about the fastness of members here. With over 400 browsing at any given time, questions usually get answered quickly.

I have a amd xp2600mhz 512ddram ,80gig hd ,geforce 4,pioneer dvd-r writer,epox mobo , loaded with winxp pro, By the way im not trying to show off just letting you know what i'll be installing linux on just in case of any problems.

That was back in the days when most systems had about 32 or 64 megs of ram, then it was a good rule of thumb to double up your ram. These days with 512 or more in most systems, for desktop use, you can get away with very little or no more than 200 megs.. etc.