Hi,
I have 40GB hard drive with 5 partitions, which are: C:\, D:\, E:\, F:\ and G:\

C: is of 10GB on which I am running windows XP Pro while on D:\ I usually install my graphic creation softwares and E:\ is belongs to my brother and F:\ contains my very important data and G:\ is free..

I want to install mandrake linux on G:\ which is of 3.5GB, I don't want to loose my any data.... I am a experte Windows user (Web Developer) but new to linux so can any of you linux geeks guys can guide me on step by step safe installation of linux mandrake 9.x with windowsXP (dual boot) ????

Also, my friend, which have linux mandrake install on his PC told me that I have to delete my existing G:\ partition and linuz setup will automatically detects it??? why we will do that???

Any help/ideas are appreciated

Thanks............

When you install you can point the Mandrake installer at your free partition. Because Windows doesn't recognise Linux partitions, you will no longer be able to view the G: drive through Windows. However, as long as your Windows partitions are fat32 or 16 formatted, Mandrake will be bale to see your Windows partitions. If you have formatted as NTFS, you'll probably need to add an app to view.

3.5gb isn't a lot of space - I think the default Mandrake install needs around 2gb.

Oh yeah, you don't have to pre-delete G:, Linux can do all the necessary for you.

Read RUTE for pre-install help and guidance.

Mandrake documentation
http://doc.mandrakelinux.com/Mandrak..._Startup.html/

Mandrake and most linux distributions require there own linux formated partitions and the filesystems are different then FAT32 and NTFS. Depending on how much RAM you have installed it is nice to have a swap partition too. swap is the same thing as virtual memory in windows but uses a partition instead of a file. So you will need to copy any existing data from your G drive before you install linux.

An alternative would be to use a version of linux the runs from the CD drive. There are many versions. One example is Knoppix.

Do a google search for NT Linux Boot Howto. When you install linux, you can install lilo to your root partition instead of the mbr. You will also want to make a boot floppy, so you can boot up linux initially. Then using the dd command, copy the boot image from the root partition to a file in the c: (hda1) drive. Finally, editing the boot.ini file for an entry for linux.