Hi Dalek

Yes - A separate FAT32 data partition is advisable.

With FAT32 - both OS's can read/write to and from it.

With NTFS - Linux can only succesfully Read data - not write to it succesfully.

Not quite so sure about the "FAT32" wisdom Skyline.

To my knowledge mandrake 9.1 should handle the ntfs OK

As far has how much room does colm need - well that's just personal preference.

My Hdd is a 120gig western digital ata100 and I have recently "re-choped it" so I have some space to install debian as well. But If my memory serves me correctly its about 20 gig for windows eckspee as ntfs, about 45 gig ext3 for mandrake and I did about 45 gig as ext2 ready for when I got the money for a debian dvd (bearing in mind that after digging around the advice is to install debian from disc for the first time, then mess with network installs and so on later)

So, I'm thinking that colm shouldn't have too much (if any) hassle installing mandrake.

regards

John

Hi BigJohn

Both Linux and Windows can Read and Write to FAT32.

Mandrake can Read NTFS - but can't Write to it.

Both Linux NTFS drivers have Read support but No succesful Write support yet

Skyline

Colm: If you would feel more comfy with a step by step guide, I would be willing to type it in for you. It's not hard but for a newbie and you having data you don't want to loose it's a thought.

Let me know if you would like to have it.

@dalek:

that would be so helpful! i think that's a document many people would appreciate having when trying this for the first time, god knows i looked hard enough for it!

Thank you so much,
Colm

I made the post once on a forum. People made a joke of it. A lot of lol posts. I can't remember where I posted it but I went back and deleted the post. If they didn't appreciate all the time involved I didn't feel they deserved it.
I'll do it again and give a link to the location. It may be in another forum though. Justlinux.com has a Howto section. I may put it there.

It may take me a bit. I actually install and write down the info on another system. I don't like suprises either.

Back later, time to fdisk and install.

It is long. Have a printer handy. Only took about three hours or so. I wasn't doing anything else so we're . Here's the link to the install guide:
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showt...168#post614168

Moderator: If you want this on this site let me know where to put it. I have no problem putting it here. I just didn't know where to put it since it's long. Didn't want you to cancel my reg. I like this site too you know.

Thanks and your welcome colm. Hope this helps you and anybody else that needs it.

Excellent, CDs should be arriving today so I'll tryh this out tonight.

You have instructions, CD 's on the way. Your set to go. I just learned something else. If you don't get the 'custom partitioning' option, reboot and hit 'F1' and type in 'expert'. One last bit of advice. Linux is case sensitive. Wrong case, won't work. Most are lower case.

OK, first problem...

Did the defrag and set the boot settings, the installer didn't get past the splash screen until i used vga=0, now the colours on the installer are a bit odd but it's legible so no problem.

language and mouse settings OK, but then it says:

"Which disk/scsi driver should I try?" and gives a long list of drivers (e.g. aacraid, ataraid, psi240i etc...)

So I pick one, then it asks whether I'd like to specify settings for the driver or let it autoprobe, I pick autoprobe.

Then: "Found XXX disk/scsi interfaces, do you have another one?" (XXX = the name of the driver I , I choose no.

Then: "Do you have any disk/scsi interfaces?", I choose no.

Then: "An error occurred - no valid devices were found on which to create new file systems".




?????
I'm guessing this is due to the SATA drive. I've tried lots of the different drivers in the list (including all the ones that include 'ATA') but no joy. Any ideas??

Thanks guys
Colm

"does he need a small partition that's fat32 to swap files between XP and Linux. I've read where people do this?"

Windows refuses to believe in the existance of other operating systems. Therefore it cannot recognize any file system other than one of the Windows file systems.

Linux is written to be able to access as many file system types as possible on a wide variety of operating systems. Microsoft keeps the specifications for NTFS secrete so the Linux developers have been able to read NTFS but cannot write a program that updates NTFS files with confidence.

So, if you want to share information between Linux and Windows you should set up a FAT32 partition. Both Windows and Linux can read/write FAT32.

bumping this - still haven't found a solution.

I did a google.com/linux and found this: http://www.redhat.com/archives/redha.../msg00821.html
I don't know if this will help though. You may see something that you recognize. It's redhat but it may help.

More links:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...002/03/2/16096
http://linux.ucla.edu/pipermail/linu...ay/003227.html
These seem to point to lack of support for the drive. Some of these are old but seem to point to 'new' drives that are not supported at the time of the errors.
I'm no guru here but it may be the SATA as you noticed.