Proud, will you throw me a PM as soon as you get news about the PowerPack ? I'll send you one too if I get news. Last mail I got from MandrakeStore is that they would start shipping the 21st. ( a week ago ) no sign since. They wrote about sending it with DHL and that they would send me a trackingnumber . . . I get so damn impatient . . drives me up the wall. . .

Bruno

I'd love to, but:
Only contributing members can use PMs here, and I'm not actually waiting for the 9.1 PP!
You just know it'll be worth it, KDE3.1 + MandrakeGalaxy theme is sweet!
Do tell me, if you remember, if the fonts are automatically the higher quality ones again, and if you get graphics drivers installed by default, like 9.0 seems to have.

Proud:
I'll send you a mail about those graghic drivers and fonts as soon as I get the PP delivered.

Bruno

Cool, thanks
Anytime you want some help, just ask and I'll try

paulbedborough[at]hotmail.com
Convert the [at]

sending a mail with mine

Bruno

I am so glad I found this thread. I am having the same problem. I have PC with win XP home edition and I want to dual boot with Linux. I have a 80GB harddrive with 2 partitions, a Huge Partition that has Win XP(NTFS) and a small("hidden") partition called EISA Configuration(FAT). This small or "hidden" partition must be the thing that the recovery CD must look at when It tries to reload Win XP. I also have teh OEM version of XP home edition that came with teh machine. I have given up resizing teh Large NTFS partition since, it seems it is unstable to do and somebody mentioned that Home edition doesn't let you do it. Thats fine but what do you think of this idea...

1.) Delete the Large NTFS partition and leave the hidden Partition alone.

2.) Create a 60GB NTFS partition for WinXP leaving 20GB free space.

3.) Reinstall XP in the 60GB partition

4.) Install Linux in the remaining 20GB.

Since I am leaving the hidden partion alone the recovery CD should work, but my question is once I try to install XP from the recovery CD will it try to repartion the whole drive for itself? Thats what I need to know.

depends on the machine

but my recovery disk reformats the entire drive

guess you'll just have to try

Well, they aren't html - it's 'vBulletin code' - so if you're typing <brackets> it won't work - requires [brackets].

Yeah, Code Warrior - I'm in the same boat and my understanding was that it would take the whole drive, regardless. And now I find that my original plan of deleting the *small* partition will render the recovery disks I ordered to *replace* the small partition useless. This is utter %&*$ing crap. Microsoft can TAKE my OS from me at any time but I can't MOVE it or SHRINK it. I had no idea I was buying a freaking MS Apple - I thought I was buying a PC. Basically, I look at it this way: even before I found out all this stuff I decided I would *never* buy the next MS OS. I'm not even buying another computer if it comes with those Fritz chips and other evil crap like that. So it's only a matter of time before I lose the OS - does it really matter if it comes screwing up a Linux install, successfully installing Linux later and having XP die, or *not* installing Linux and having XP die? And if the Linux install is successful, I'd probably delete XP anyway. So, screw it - roll the dice. All I want is a working alternative to this tyranny.

Why I'm slaving so hard at getting my crap P100 and 486 running - so I at least have *something* besides this if I do utterly wreck it.

digiot,

Man you are right! I am pretty pissed off too. I mean I got this huge drive and I can't maximize the space. I was wondering what that sticker saying "Designed for Miscrosoft Windows XP" mean't, How can you design a PC for WIndows, now I know.

I am not sure what to do, I have a few options. Delete the large WIndows partition and leave the recovery partition, and try to reinstall XP from the recovery disk and see if it does indead take all the space(got a dell- anybody know before I undertake this). If it does then I am back to where I started, if not then I will install Linux. The second option is to buy another drive and install Linux on that, or third bring back my old PC and make it a Linux box. This just sucks. I had both Win95 and Redhat5.2 on a machine a long time ago, used Partition Magic for the partitions and I had no problems.

If your other computer is good enough, I'd definitely go with a dedicated Linux box. If not, and you can afford a second hard drive, I'd definitely go with that. And, last, I'd try the reinstall to see how it goes. But I hate the idea of trying to reinstall something that isn't actually damaged, y'know? You risk taking a 'working' system and having something go wrong with the reinstall so that even XP doesn't run.

Those do sound about like the only options. I wouldn't actually get a proprietary resizer but I tried some stuff out just to see if I was to do so - defragged XP and guess what? 'Unmovable files' at the *end* of the partition. So a resizer would either refuse to resize it or delete the files at the end when it did resize, most likely.

MS just gets worse and worse. I actually kinda *like* DOS but they killed it with Win9x which added winmodems and what not, and then killed that with NT and NTFS file systems and all the crap they've got going on... like I say, the successors to XP are just going to be unreal. I wish I'd never gotten this XP and this is where it stops.

Okay, I've been gone all weekend, and have just caught up with reading this thread. Give me a little bit of time to process and try out Bruno's suggestions and I'll post back. Meanwhile, I can be reached through AIM, ICQ or Yahoo Messenger.

Okay, stuck on the very first item! I've tried following the directions for creating a boot flopping in the Windows XP help area, but I can't find any of the files that they tell me to look for. I'm looking in hidden and system files, and still can't seem to locate any of the files they require I transfer to disk in order to reboot in case of emergency.

Any suggestions?

Is there no option for it in > configurationscreen > software > last tab ? ( I'm not an XP expert )
Otherwise you can risk it without, was just because you went to so much trouble already, that I wanted to be on the absolute safe side !
Anyway be SURE that in lilo.conf there is an entry for windows, then, as root, do /sbin/lilo , 99% chance that all will go well.

Bruno

You can't make a proper boot disk in XP afaik - you can only make a sort of boot loader disk. If you're hard drive is trashed, you're still probably trashed. Kinda like the recovery disks looking on the hard drive for files they expect to be there. The 'boot disk' looks for the OS on the hard drive.

As far as finding the files, do 'dir /ah' from the dos box or click on exploder and Tools>Options>View>Show hidden/system files and uncheck 'hide protected system files'. I think that'll do it.

edit - that's two things - you have to unhide stuff twice in two separate boxes.

Personally I think I will just buy another Harddrive and dedicate it all to Linux. THey are pretty cheap; I saw a 40GB Maxtor harddrive for $50 after rebates. I am pretty pissed off about several things, two being the garbage OEM software and Windows XP having critical and unmovable files on the disk. I can't believe it was such a pain to partition a drive. I don't want to screw something up, because unfortunately I still need XP working, but as I learn more about Linux I will try to do most of my work on that. Guys I think you saved me money and a lot of headaches. Thanks!