new to linux pls help

elephantine · 09-11-2002, 11:18 AM

Hi,
my system specs are :
PIII 733 mhz
20 gig HDD, partitioned into c: (5 gig) d: (10 gig) and E: (5gig)
current OS is Win2K SP 2,

all the partitions have been formatted to NTFS format

now i wish to make my system dual OS: Win 2K and RH 7.3 or Mandrake 8.2, such that when i start my machine it will ask which OS i want to boot up to.

my question is, I want to install linux OS in E: which has been formatted in NTFS format. how shld i go abt. it without destroying the data in D: and C:.

TIA

j-ray · 09-11-2002, 11:46 AM

boot your machine from install cd of redhat or mandy. there is an installation program u simply have to follow. it will ask u if u want to partition your hd. u have to partition drive E as ext2 or reiserfs. it's not difficult - don't worry.
u can configure your boot constellation with a program called lilo.if some more questions occur post in here.
btw - welcome!
cheers, jens

elephantine · 09-11-2002, 12:04 PM

hi j-ray

thanks for the welcome,

so basically i just pop in the RH 7.3 CD and the program will ask whether i wish to repartition the HDD to ext2 or reiserfs (which shld i choose) and thats it, but very sorry but how do i configure the LILO do i have to edit it. such that when i switch on the PC, there will be a screen asking which OS i want to boot, linux or win2K.

tia
elephantine

Zychior · 09-11-2002, 08:30 PM

I would first remove the E: partition. When Linux installs it will look for the first open space on the HDD and put itself there. I am a newbie but this is how it worked for me. I did have to modify the lilo because it put Linux as the default boot. If you look for lilo and Win XP here I am sure you can find the info for that.

elephantine · 09-12-2002, 03:51 AM

Hi, zychior, thanks for ur post, but how do i configure the lilo to give me a dual boot screen where i can choose the OS I want to boot to. can you direct me to the url or link that has the appropriate script for my system - PIII Win 2K SP2

wonderpun · 09-12-2002, 04:29 AM

You just try to install Red Hat Linux and after the install(or before I don't really remember

) it will show you what systems it found and what systems would you like to dual boot with Linux. Good Luck!

lynch · 09-12-2002, 04:44 AM

The latest versions of Lilo and Grub see your NT partitions and set them up for dual-booting.I just tried it as an experiment with W2k(spk2) and Mandrake 8.2.It worked like a charm.
I would delete the E: partition and ,when prompted during install,choose to use the free space to install Linux .
lynch

Quest · 09-12-2002, 04:59 AM

wat if my boot drive is scsi.....if i installed Mandrake onto another ide drive can i dual boot?