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Distribution: Dual booting Mandrake 10 and SUSE 9.1
Posts: 44
Rep:
quick dual boot question
Would I be right in thinking that if you have windows installed as one partition on the whole of a drive most linux distros will as part of the install proccess be able to shrink it to make room for a dual boot system?
1) defrag windows.
2) make a backup of windows.
3) make a boot disk for windows. If you have problems getting the dual boot working correctly, it's the only way you'll have of booting windows until dual boot works.
4) use the partitioning software of the linux distro you want to install (i'd recommend cfdisk if it's available), to decrease the size of the windows partition. Then make an extended partition. Then, inside that extended partition, make the swap and linux partitions for your distro.
5) works for me.
I try to keep win and linux on seperate drives on my dual boot machines if I have the option. It is just easier for me. I like win on hda and linux on hdb.
On my work laptop I didn't have a choice and what bigrigdriver said above worked perfectly. (I would recommend cfdisk for partioning also.)
Last edited by DeadPenguin; 04-28-2005 at 08:58 PM.
A Linux installation will not by itself partition the way you want. You need as mentioned befor a partioning program. I have found Parted to work very well:
Distribution: Dual booting Mandrake 10 and SUSE 9.1
Posts: 44
Original Poster
Rep:
The question was not for me exactly I was trying to explain what I did to someone to get my dual boot ( windows ME and SUSE) I thought all I did was install windows, one partition, whole drive then booted from the SUSE cd and it shrank the windows partition and installed. Did I remember it wrong!!?
Just installed suse 9.2 on another laptop w/ 30 gig drive with XPlode on it. I resized the win partition to 15g and suse got 15g. Install went very smoothly, but I had good backups and boot disk just in case.
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