Please Help A Noob, Quick Question About Dual Boot
Linux - NewbieThis Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question?
If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Please Help A Noob, Quick Question About Dual Boot
I have windows XP installed on one drive and I have Mandrakelinux Official 10.0. I have 2 hard drives. If I install Linux on my second drive will it leave windows alone and give me the option to boot either one at startup? Like, will it change the boot.ini? If not, is it as simple as changing the boot.ini? If so what should be added to the file. Thanks for any help.
you'll probably need need a /boot partition of about 100M and type ext2 to be put in front of your XP partition on HD0 -- that'll house your new boot info... XP, and MS in general does NOT have the capability to boot other OSes that are not by MS... you will need to use a linux bootloader, or otherwise non-MS bootloader...
Originally posted by secesh you'll probably need need a /boot partition of about 100M and type ext2 to be put in front of your XP partition on HD0
I dont know what you mean by "type ext2 to be put in front of your XP partition on HD0"
Also I forgot to ask, should the linux drive be NTFS or something else, and what partitions should it have, I know /boot, but what else?
If you install Mandrake 10.0 official onto a secondary hard drive (slave) it won't disturb your Windows data at all.
What it will do, however, is overwrite your Windows boot file. This is OK though, as it will replace it with a bootloader of its own called lilo. Mandrake 10.0 will recognise your Windows partition and add it to the bootloader automatically as the last entry.
When you reboot you'll be presented with a blue screen with a lot of Linux boot options with Windows being last on the list. Simply choose which OS you want to boot and you're away.
EDIT During the install, if you let Mandrake define its own partitions, this is usually OK for most users. You can create your own if you want to though: as a bare minimum you'll need a / (root) partition a 'swap' partition and a 'home' partition. If you've got a fast PC with loads of RAM then size your swap at about 512Mb. The standard file system for Linux is Ext 2 or 3 (Mandrake uses Ext 3 by default) - you can't install Linux on an NTFS partition.
Last edited by pongmaster; 11-18-2004 at 05:58 PM.
Everything worked. I now have windows xp on one drive, Linux on the other, and can choose what I want to boot into at startup. Thanks and this thread can be closed.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.