Win2k dual boot
 

I would like to install Redhat 7.2 with my win2k as dual boot. I am very new to linux and would like some help as how to get started. i have already set up 7.2 alone on a pc, but never as a dual boot.I presently have win2k on a 30 gb drive partioned as 10 gb each. Also this being a computer from work it has boot magic installed on it.The disk id formated in fat32 If anyone can get me started in the right direction it would be greatly apreciated.Thanks so much

I am assuming you already have 10 GB on the disk as a separate partition (not used by W2000). If so, it's really easy. If not, use partition Magic to release some space, and assign it to ext3 filesystem type (Partition Magic 6 onwards understands it). Make sure you can boot from CD-ROM. Put RH7.2 CD1 in and reboot the machine. When boots and you get the boot prompt, hit enter and this will get you into 'new installation' mode. Follow the few initial steps (straightforward) until you get to the disk partitioning bit. You will have a choice of tools to use, fdisk is one, but I recommend RedHat's Disk Druid. Once it appears, you will se that it has recognised your W2K partition. Use the spare partition for Linux. And take it from there...
If you need some more hints on 7.2 install, let me know. I have used it as dual boot with various Windoze on many a machine ;-)
As for actual dual-boot procedure, you can use your Boot Magic for it (you must inform Linux of it by selecting LILO in 1st Linux partition). If you want Linux to handle booting, place LILO in MBR, and later on change /etc/lilo.conf.
Let me know if you are happy with it. If not, I can talk you through it...

good luck,
alina

Thanks so much for the response. ON

Sorry didn t finish my post...well i ging to give it a try latter on tonight. thanks for the help

Well i formated one of my 10gb partitions to ext3 with partion magic. I started the installation process and i can t seem to get past disk druid.Can you please give me a detailed description on how to go about it i can't seem to get it. Thanks again for your help.

Once you are in disk druid, highlight the spare partition (i'm assuming it is shown), then click on Add
A secondary screen will appear and there you choose type (ext3), size, etc.
You want to create a minimum number of logical partitions first time you try it (later on I would advise to do it again and do some more, but that would be another exercise, for now just prove that it works).
Add the following:
/boot, size 35MB, ext3
swap, size equal to twice your physical RAM (but not more than 500M), with filesystem type: swap
/ (root) with the size of the rest of your disk; this doesn't have to be acurate, as you can mark it to fill the rest of the disk.

See how it goes...

I am able to click on my spare partition...i do not have a add button,all i have is new-edit -delete-reset-make raid. when i click on new it opens a second window where i enter -mount point /boot size 35 i check "fill all space up to (MB) 35" i click ok then i get "could not allocate requested partitions partitioning failed could not allocate partions as primary partitions.

Yes, it is 'new' not 'add'...
I'm stuck. The only thing I can think of is that Partition Magic didn't do the job correctly. How about using straight fdisk from NT's command line and removing all non-NT partitions altogether. This will mark the space as unused for NT and allow Linux to start from scratch.
Another thought, also: is it possible that Linux is trying to put /boot on a primary, whereas your 10GB was created as extended (for logical partitions)?
I can't verufy the default for Linux installer right now - don't have a Linux box in front of me at the moment.

flashman,

Going off the "I'm new to linux" and that you are also using windows, I would recommend that you buy a second drive and install linux in this drive. My reasons for this are

1. Whatever you do to linux or the partition table as a newbie will not affect your windows drive. I've personally destroyed my windows installations at least 3 times when I became involved with linux.

2. Incompabilities between windows and linux in terms of how a hard drive partition table is defined can cause further problems. Throw in a boot manager such as Partition Magic and you can easily kiss all your work goodby. The incompabitilies have to do with linux's extended partition vs a windows extended partition plus the fact that windows disk manager doesn't understand windows. PM may not either.

Understand that I'm not saying it can't be done. It can be done and I've done it. I'm just saying that its very easy to UNDO your work as you learn how. A new hard drive is relatively cheap 40 gig is US$60-80 bucks.

I finally got it yo work :-)... Thanks for all the help. Now if i can only get my cable internet connection to work :-( well one step at a time...again thanks.

Hi, I had a related question in this regard about dual booting with Win2K. The problem is that I have already installed Win2K using NTFS which takes up the entire 20gb hard disk. Correct me if I am wrong, but earlier when I had Win98 and FAT32, I think I could resize the partition during the Linux installation and it worked fine. But now I am getting a warning which says resizing the NTFS filesystem would mean reformatting the entire disk space and hence would delete all files currently in there.

I am using about 4Gb right now and have gone great lengths in setting up the Windows IDE's to work and talk among themselves. I would hate to do a reinstall of Win2K again. Is there a shortcut. I have not used Partition Magic, but does it allow to resize NTFS without loosing data?

One last thing, I have heard that the new lilo doesn't have the 1024 cylinder restriction. In that case. I am hoping it would be safe to install / at around 14gb mark and have no seperate /boot before the 1024. Any suggestions?

Thanks a lot for your time!

Linux and NTFS, including the Linux partition sizing software, do not get along because resizing a partition is a write operation and Linux writing on NTFS is bad at best, fatal in most cases to the NTFS partition. You will want a third party partition package to resize or slice and dice NTFS-formatted space.

coolguy18087, the easiest way would be to have the first partition of primary HD in FAT32 format. All the headaches are solved.

That's the practice I always stick with.

My setup 40g
5g, w98, fat32
5g, xp, ntfs
10g, w2k, ntfs
5g, linux
250mb, swap (not needed for my current distro, but others might force me to make one)
5g, games, fat32
8g, temp(my doc), fat32

I save everything on My Document configured via right-click in Windows. Reformat Windows. Infest Windows with virii or trojans. H@ck it. No problem!! BTW, I have ghosts(back-ups) of every Windows. One is the very original after all driver installs and updates; another is the lastest in case disaster strikes.

flashman, from my experience, it's best NOT to assign/format a partition in PM7. Instead, leave it as empty. *nix, *BSD, QNX if you know what I'm talking about, and AtheOS, etc. WILL install just fine because they know what's best for the partition type. If you insist on assigning something to it, like one of my stubborn friend, you will have no prob with Linux, but TON of probs with *BSD, etc. Why do the job twice when you can do it once?

For my Linux partition, I edited it as / and checked format and nothing else. Modern distros will know what to do with /. /boot and 1024 cylinder limit are old. You can see them mentioned in docs written in 1990 era.

IMO, best way to parition is boot to Win, back up registry, boot stuff and important files that includes favorites/bookmarks, scandisk thorough, defrag full, partition, leave space as empty, boot to Linux, install away.

Anyway, welcome to Linux!

FYI: my /etc/lilo.conf
disk=/dev/hda
bios=128
disk=/dev/hdb
bios=129
boot=/dev/hda
prompt
timeout=300
lba32
default=ASPLinux
vga=773

# ASPLinux
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.9-13
initrd=/boot/initrd.2.4.9-13.img
label=ASPLinux
root=/dev/hda5
read-only

# Windows98
other=/dev/hda1
label=Windows98

# WindowsXP
other=/dev/hda2
label=WindowsXP

# Windows2000
other=/dev/hda3
label=Windows2000

--- end of file

FYI, simple W2K & Linux dual-boot how-to,

Back up your files & favorites on Windows
Defrag & scandisk thorough
Run fips.exe from Mandrake CD1
Shrink Windows partition & create 2GB+ Linux partition
Install Linux
Install lilo on 1st sector of Linux partition
dd if=/dev/hda3 of=boot.lnx bs=512 count=1
cp boot.lnx /mnt/floppy
Boot XP
copy boot.lnx c:\
edit boot.ini
After multi(0)..., add
C:\boot.lnx="linux"
Reboot