I'm sorry if this question has been asked a thousand times, but I can't find a good enough explanation for my issue.

I have Red Hat 9 installed on my computer at the moment. Unfortunately, I would like to dual partition my drive so that I can have both RedHat and Windows XP.

I keep seeing people say, "INSTALL WINDOWS FIRST!". My question, being the new guy that I am...how do I do that?

I understand that I need to delete my partitions, then somehow install Windows, but I have no idea how.

Please tell me how I can repartition my drive, what software I might need (and where to get it), and the steps I'll need to take.

When you think of my ability with Linux, imagine your grandmother.

Yeah, that bad, so PLEASE make it easy.

Do you really need Windows XP? Could perhaps Windows 98 fill whatever need you think you might need XP for? For example, Windows 98 will run Office XP.

The reason why I ask all of this is, if Windows 98 will do what you want XP for, then there is no need whatsoever to repartition anything. You simply install Windows 98 under your Red Hat 9.0 Linux using Win4Lin 5.0.

I would, but WindowsXP is the only version I have available.

You can Use "fdisk" if you want, where to find it, just search for it and you'll find it. then you aliminate all courrent patitions re-asign the partitions as you want(if you do this, keep in mind a partition for windos so that i'll make it a ntfs or fat32). then when you have your disk (hd) ready you install windows as you have always done it, then when you finish with it start with Linux.

Most people say that you first "have" to install windows. This is not the only way to do it you can do it the other way, But the probles is that the windows OS is not that strong for making such a taks, so dont ask windos that firs you install the weak OS then you install the OS that is capable of that task.

One last thing don't spect that all your doubts are answered just by asking them, try to read first and then if you really cant do it ask for help, about this topic there is alot of information bunches of howtos and manual, so try to make that effort.

XPT, I really did my best to search for other materials. Not only that, I've spent the last hour in #linuxhelp trying to figure out what to do. I would really appreciate it if someone could tell me how to install it from RedHat. Thanks everyone, I appreciate it!

Believe me when I say that, if you can get Windows 98 and install it under your Red Hat 9.0, you will save yourself a lot of headaches. Dual boot is a nasty setup and becomes completely unworkable if you want to do any real data transfer between your Linux and Windows, which will no doubt become a necessity if it isn't already (i.e. Murphy's Law).

Dual-booting isn't THAT bad. I'd suggest picking up a second hard drive, it makes it A LOT more friendly, and it's not like hard drives are expensive these days (even a little 10 or 15 gig drive is plenty for Linux if you're not using it as your everday system). I can guide you through it if you really want, but it's not all that tough.

True, meaning it does make dual booting friendlier but still doesn't make it friendly. Further, for the cost of another hard drive, LovinLinux can get Win4Lin 5.0 and install Windows 98 under his Red Hat. Now, that would be a very friendly solution to his problem here and I should personally know because I have Windows 95 installed under Mandrake 9.0. The ability to bounce data back and forth between Windows and Linux programs and the ability to otherwise operate Windows and Linux at the same time has to be seen to be believed.

I had the same problem - got a free copy of acronis partition expert with a magazine which is very easy to use, don't know if I'll be able to get rid of the partition again but hopefully won't want to... The other useful thing was I could choose the file type for the new partition...

Yep, I've got VMWare on here. Works fine for basic things, but for anything fancy (like gaming, video editing, etc), it would be too slow.

I was able to get my machine to dual boot just fine with some help, but my rig configuration is abit different. I have two hard drives with both OS on each. One with XP, and the other with Red Hat 9.0.

BACK STORY... I had win 98SE installed with RH 9.0 and everything was good until it broke... I am still trying to figure that out, but I bought a new hard drive that was better than the one I had before with Win 98SE. I installed Win XP first, and configured it the way that it should be done... behind a firewall, and updates done fast!

You need a Linux boot disc, and you have to use GRUB boot-loader. After I did my research, and asking questions I was able to get it working.

if you need help... shadzilla@hotmail.com

Thanks


Shadz