Hi,

Im runnning win xp pro and was wondering to install redhat on my cimputer to check it out too. i downloaded and burned em on cd but i want to install them ontop of my winxp installation so i cud make this decision when the pc starts up, redhat or winxp .

Is this possible and how could i do it?

Thanks !

If its RedHat when you go through the installation process and should automatically identify Windows XP as being on your comp and will give u the option to partition your comp(You will need a fairly big HD i recommend at least 20) and it should make it so when u turn your comp on that u select if u would like to boot up with windows xp or red hat linux, hope i helped
Thanks

Redhat boot manager will automatically find all operating systems on your machine. The installation will prompt you to install boot manager- either grub or lilo (I prefer lilo). Also, make sure that you install this boot manager on MBR(will be one of the options). When the installation is complete than it will ask you to reboot your machine. You will see a lilo screen which will have options for your various operating systems (which in your case is xp and redhat). This will wait for you to choose OS for about 10 seconds. You can choose to boot it in any OS that you like. If you dont like this boot manager then you can always restore windows boot loader later on..so dont worry and give it a shot. I am sure you will love linux. Welcome to the real operating system and LQ.
Cool

Thanks for posting..

However when im installing Red Hat Linux 9 it gives me the choice of using automatic partition or disk druide. I have 2 hard disks, my primary one of 10 GiG with only 2 GiG free, and my secondary one with free space of 24 gigabytes.

Now when i use automatic partition it gives the following error :

and if i use manual , it does only seem to work if i choose format for my harddrive which i dont want to do.

Thanks

Go for manuall partition.Create 3 partitions After deleting the partitions you want to delete-one the '/boot' partition -give it 30-45 mb,then go for swap partition-give it some 128mb.if it asks for more,give it.then the '/' partition.it is your root partition and give it the memory you want.
If tehre is any error,list it here.

so basically i need to delete a partition and creat new ones , but doesnt this affect my data ?

Did you mean that your first hard disk is 12GB and has only one partition taking all the space (and this partition has 2 Gigs free)? Or did you mean you have a 10 gb partition with 2 gb unallocated? And what about your other disk? What partitions do have on it? You may not need to install anything on your first disk (it's pretty cramped already). If you already have partitions taking up all the space on the disks, you'll need to resize or delete them (resize if you want to keep the stuff on them).

well i have 2 harddisks , they have only 1 partitition and thats a 100% one.

What exactly is currently on your 2nd hard drive?

some games , webdesign stuff , and data.

what you need to do essentially is free up space on your 2nd drive (it is free you say...)
the space is allocated to the windows partition, so it can't be formatted for anything else. you can use disk druid to change the size of the existing partition and leave what is extensibly the later portion of the drive as "free space" , not seen on the partition table.

the next easiest step is to let redhat fill the "free space", and make the sub-partitions itself.

it will then give the options for the boot loader.

just a tip, if you are using NTFS, linux won't be able to read this as-is. read up options for sharing info between your os's.

oh ok forgive me my noobness :sad:

my D drive is NTFS and has 20 Gigabyte free, now how do i cut 10 gig off for linux as partition without formatting it?

You move the data from ntfs drive to your other drive and then format ntfs drive to fit your needs. Or, the best way to do what u wanna do is by using partition magic, it will partition your ntfs drive without touching your other half.

Yeah, if your drive is NTFS (being WIN XP PRO) you cannot repartition the drive without losing the data if you're using disk druid. You can theoretically use partition magic (which is a pay program) to repartition it and save data, but BACKUP YOUR STUFF FIRST. I did the exact same thing you're trying to do. I have win xp pro, and wanted to be able to dual boot either into windows or red hat linux. I tried to use partition magic, but that didn't work - it ended up screwing up the partition tables. So i ended up deleteing all existing partitions, reinstalling win xp pro (keeping enough space free'd up in unpartitioned space for a linux and data partition) and installing red hat later on.

FYI - so that i could share mp3's, movies and other files between the 2 OS's, i have an additional partition that is FAT32, not NTFS. Both win xp and linux can read FAT32.

ok thanks for the big help , this is what ive done :

i used partition magic 8 and i made a 20 gig partition on my NTFS D harddisk. i installed linux on it automaticly and it all ran fine. i choosed lilo as bootmanager etc etc. now when i reboot the system there is no lilo running and in winxp when i look in my computer , i see no 3rd Disk with the linux installation