Installing Windows 98 or XP after Linux

PhuckFonix · 05-01-2005, 05:53 PM

There are a few games I want to play: Medieval: Total War and Shogun: Total War that I require Windows for. I haven't been able to find any clones or full Linux ports of this game, so I think installing Windows is the only choice I have if I want to play these games.

Right now, my first 80 gig disk has the root system partition (hda5), the files partition (hda3), the swap partition(hda6) and the whole extend partition (hda4). Graphically, the end of hda has 27gb of space available which is not part of the extended partition.

The secondary 20 gig has no partitions.

I want to (1) set aside some space either on this 80 gig or on this 20 gig that's empty for a Windows partition. (2) Install Windows, (3) and easily configure the Boot sector (and, if need, partition table) so that I have grub have a bootable menu for my Debian distribution root partition (hda5) and my Windows installation.

What I am worried about in this process is: (1) That I format the partition table, partitions, or boot sector to write into other partitions or disks. I think that last time, however, I did it, I had a partition at the end of the primary HDD write straight into the beginning of the secondary HDD.

I have two devices: an 80 gig with some space left in an the extended partition portion of the disk and a empty 20 gig drive.

Code:

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 155061 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda3           22368       99873    39063024   83  Linux
/dev/hda4               1       22367    11272936+   5  Extended
/dev/hda5   *           1       20806    10486161   83  Linux
/dev/hda6           20807       22367      786712+  82  Linux swap

Code:

Disk /dev/hdb: 20.8 GB, 20847697920 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 40395 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

Thanks for you time.

hitman_et · 05-01-2005, 07:22 PM

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...icle&artid=196

Hope that helps

PhuckFonix · 05-01-2005, 07:38 PM

Thanks, I actually skimmed that before and decided I didn't understand it/it was out of date.

But now, taking a closer look at it, I have a few questions:

(1) What is LBA mode and why it necessary?

Quote:

01. Make sure your harddisk is set to LBA in the BIOS.

(2) What is my Debian Sarge net install CD equivalent to this step? (I also have Slackware 10.0, Knoppix, SuSE 9.1, other discs if they are okay to use)

Quote:

12.Once you are happy that Windows is installed, insert RedHat CD 1 again and reboot your PC. At the bootscreen type:
linux rescue

This will get you into rescue mode. It will mount your linux under /mnt/sysimage. Just follow the prompts until you get to the system. Then type:
chroot /mnt/sysimage

(3) Is there a Debian specific way to edit grub.conf? I ask because editing conf files in Debian may result in the files with modification being ignored and the backups being used instead because they do not match the md5/backup file.

hitman_et · 05-01-2005, 07:59 PM

1. I think LBA is used for older computers (with an old BIOS) with hard drives bigger than 540mb, if your computer is less than 10 years old you should be right

2. Yes it should work, but the rescue part may be different, ie it might be something other than "linux rescue" and the maintainence mode may be differnet aswell

3. Im not sure about that, try www.google.com/linux, or these forums