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-   -   partition a 180 Gb drive for dual-boot (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/partition-a-180-gb-drive-for-dual-boot-314618/)

ab78 04-18-2005 03:47 PM

partition a 180 Gb drive for dual-boot
 
I currently have a 180 Gb WD hard drive running Windows XP Pro. I would like to take Linux for a test drive, and for now need a dual boot system. Here is my current partition table.


/dev/hda type size start end
/dev/hda1 ntfs 20481 1 2611
/dev/hda2 Extended 151213 2612 21888
/dev/hda5 ntfs 20481 2612 5222
/dev/hda6 ntfs 102399 5223 18276
Free 28333 18277 21888
Free 8 21889 21889

I am willing to backup / format / repartition etc... the hard drive if need be. I would like to have the two operating systems, along with a couple of additional partitions for media, backup, etc... that i could access by each. My main question is whether i need to setup primary partitions for the OS's and which ones need to be fat32.

Any ideas would be helpful......thanks

marghorp 04-18-2005 04:12 PM

You can format in any way you want. Just remember two things. Windows can not write to linux partitions and Linux can not write to NTFS partitions (as for yet). They can both read each others partitions (with a program in windows) and can both write to FAT partitions (FAT16 or FAT32).

When partitioning you can and should create a / (root partition) and a /home (home partition). In the home partition is where all your personal files will reside. Or you can do this nice trick of creating symlinks to FAT partitions and extend your home directory to bigger space. However in this case you loose permission capability and this is a security issue. So be careful and think before doing such a thing :)

Well, if you have any unanswered questions, let us know.


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