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Old 03-20-2003, 02:16 PM   #1
TeknoPhreak
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Help This Newb Achieve his Linux Dream!


Ok, hopefully this wont be too long of a post, but i need help! I wanna dual boot WinXP and mandrake. I have some familiarity with mandrake b/c i installed it on my laptop for a few weeks b4 i had to reinstall XP on it so my girlfriend could do school work while she traveled for her volleyball games. Since then it's just been easier to keep XP on it to do school work with. BUT i wanna learn more about linux! I crave more technical knowledge and prowess. So here's what i have and what i want to do. Keep in mind i'm a pretty basic knowledge of Linux and what i can or can't do.

I have 2 HDD's installed. One 30gig - C: (XP installed) and one 40 gig Q: (file storage). What i would truely like to do is use Partition Magic to partition off 10-15 gigs of the 40 gig HDD and install Mandrake on it. Then be able to dual boot between the main XP installation and the mandrake installation (apparently i have to use some program called Grub or LIlo to do that). I deffinately want C: to be able to view Q: like it does now, but i would also like L: (the linux drive) to be able to view Q: as well, but not necessary. Can this be done?

I want XP to be the default and main booting system, but of course i will always want the option to boot into the mandrake system.

Concerning Grub and Lilo, I don't know much about them, but are they not both Linux installations? I would prefer a XP installation to do this.

Like i said I'm very new to this all and have a smoewhat limited knowledge. If there are any guides out there that answer most of these questions that you guys could point me to that would be great, thus far i have found none, and I've been lookin.

THANK YOU!
Enjoi.
-Tek
 
Old 03-20-2003, 02:44 PM   #2
mhearn
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A few things:

1) You will need partition magic or Mandrake 9.1 final to resize the NTFS partitions.

2) Linux doesn't use drive letters, and Windows ignores Linux partitions, so there will be no drive L

3) Linux can read, but not write NTFS partitions. If you want to swap data between them, create a FAT32 partition while you're at it

4) GRUB and LILO are boot loaders, they allow you to choose which OS you want at bootup. The differences between them are not important right now, your distro (mandrake) will sort it out for you.
 
Old 03-20-2003, 02:48 PM   #3
Mara
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Re: Help This Newb Achieve his Linux Dream!

Quote:
Originally posted by TeknoPhreak

I have 2 HDD's installed. One 30gig - C: (XP installed) and one 40 gig Q: (file storage). What i would truely like to do is use Partition Magic to partition off 10-15 gigs of the 40 gig HDD and install Mandrake on it. Then be able to dual boot between the main XP installation and the mandrake installation (apparently i have to use some program called Grub or LIlo to do that). I deffinately want C: to be able to view Q: like it does now, but i would also like L: (the linux drive) to be able to view Q: as well, but not necessary. Can this be done?
Short answer:yes.
Longer answer: After resize, Q: will still be Q:. No change for Windows. Mandrake will detect the other partitions for you, so you should have access to both C: and Q: (read-only if they're NTFS, read/write if they're FAT).
Quote:
Concerning Grub and Lilo, I don't know much about them, but are they not both Linux installations? I would prefer a XP installation to do this.

Like i said I'm very new to this all and have a smoewhat limited knowledge. If there are any guides out there that answer most of these questions that you guys could point me to that would be great, thus far i have found none, and I've been lookin.
There's HOWTO: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Linux+NT-Loader.html
It covers NT, but NT and XP use the same bootloader, so you do it the same way in both systems. You'll need Linux bootloader (LILO or GRUB, in the HOWTO there's LILO used) to boot one of the kernels you may have. So you'll have 2: XP bootloaderllowing you to choose between XP and Linux and when you choose Linux, the second one will appear allowing you to choose Linux kernel.
 
Old 03-20-2003, 02:49 PM   #4
TeknoPhreak
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Ok, so to start i'm just gonna go ahead and use partition magic to partion 10-15 gigs of Q: NTFS for now until i get some more replies, but thank you mhearn, that helps.

Enjoi.
-Tek
 
Old 03-20-2003, 03:26 PM   #5
Mara
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Do it. But don't create any new partitions using PM. Leave free space for the Mandrake installer. When you finish partitioning boot Windows again to let it 'find' the changes.
 
Old 03-20-2003, 07:05 PM   #6
JayCnrs
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As for accessing the q: drive in linux it will be considered /dev/hdbx, where hdbx will change depending as to where you put the linux partition I'm assuming you will have the second hdd as slave on the first primary ide channel and the Windoze q: at the beginning of the hdd.

In that case hdbx will be hdb1 for windows and start at hdb2 and up for linux.

Then you will be able to mount your Windoze q: drive from Linux. Check out other topics at this thread for mounting an NTFS partition:
 
Old 03-20-2003, 07:40 PM   #7
Dave Skywatcher
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Quote:
Originally posted by Mara
Do it. But don't create any new partitions using PM. Leave free space for the Mandrake installer. When you finish partitioning boot Windows again to let it 'find' the changes.
This is absolutely right, and easy to miss. PartitionMagic has an option to put an ext2 filesystem in a partition, so it seems like the obvious choice to make a new Linux partition with ext2, right there in PM. I did exactly this the first time I tried to install Linux. Big mistake!

You need to leave the space you want to use for Linux unpartitioned as far as PM is concerned (it will see your ext2 partition just fine after you've installed Linux). The installer for your distro will create (or help you create) the needed partitions during the install process.
 
Old 03-20-2003, 09:48 PM   #8
TeknoPhreak
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Well while i was installing partition magic i found out that you need a 3.5 in floppy drive to create some kind of disk needed to use PM. Well i recently moved all my hardware over to a new case and left out my 3.5in floppy on purpose cause i no longer wish to use it. So i now see PM is not an option, thus i guess i am left to use FDisk and just coppy over what's on Q now to whats on my C: and then just fdisk the sucker and create a new partition from scratch. Hopefully i wont screw up too much. If you guys have any favorite FDisk tutorial sites, i'd love to know. Thanks!

Enjoi.
-Tek
 
Old 03-21-2003, 08:06 AM   #9
Burke
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After you boot into Mandrake the first time,
your NTFS and Fat32 partition(s) will be auto-mounted for you in /mnt .. For example, on one of the machines I setup, the C: was NTFS and D: was fat32 .. Mandrake 9.0 mounted these as:
NTFS: /mnt/nt
FAT32: /mnt/windows
 
Old 03-21-2003, 08:57 AM   #10
Aussie
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Acronis partition expert is an alternitive to partition magic, a better alternitive, it supports ext2, ext3 and reiserfs along with the usual MS suspects.
http://www.acronis.com/products/partitionexpert/
 
  


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