I have a question for you experienced pc enthusiasts... I have a sidewinder force feedback pro... and i can't get it to work in windows xp. What i am trying to use it for is Microsoft flight simulator. I went to the web site and they didn't really have anything for the model i have... just the second edition. The drivers are only compatible for windows 98 and 95. For this reason i would like to make a partition of windows 98... simply for running the flight simulator program. However... from what i have read... i would have to uninstall XP, install 98, then reinstall xp... now i know you are wondering what this has to do with linux... I have mandrake 10 installed. My setup is this;

Win XP on 1st hd
Linux on 2nd hd
I also have the lilo in the first boot sector of hd1

Now... i was wondering if there is any way to maybe cut the space on the linux home partition to make a copy of my xp partition, then clear that 1st drive by installing 98, then "pasting" the copy i made of the xp partition after the 98 partition? now... this probably sounds all jumbled... so let's see if i can explain it better....

1st. Cut down freespace on linux home directory partition with partition magic
( linux partition free space = 16gb, xp partition = 11gb)

2nd. Make a copy xp partition with a prog like DriveImage onto freed up space of linux partition(i have never done this... so i am not sure how... although i read that Drive Image is pretty simple and straightforward)

3rd. Install 98 on original hd, thus erasing xp.

4th. After installing 98, making a partition for xp, and transferring the copy that was made earlier.

5th. Resizing partition for linux back to normal.

Now... the main questions i have are...

#1. Am i able to make a complete back up of xp partition, so that it's just a transferable image, and won't require any reinstallation of anything? so that basically... it's just a mirror image, and no matter where i put it, it is the same as the original partition on the first disk?

#2. What will all this do to the linux lilo? how will i make it all work so that i can choose between 98, xp, and linux?

#3. would i be better off leaving the xp partition in tact and resizing the linux partition, so linux and 98 reside on one hd, and xp on the other? so as not to disrupt the xp files?

The main problem i found when first trying to install 98... was that it wanted to completly erase the entire disk... it will not accept just a partition. Well... i sure hope i can find an answer to all this. And if there is a simpler way... please feel fre to explain. Like if there are drivers for the controller for xp that i overlooked... or if there is just a simpler way to go about installing the 98.

I thought it might also help if i added that i might have a spare 2gb hd laying around somewhere... if it would make it easier to install 98 on that... or if that is even an option.

Thank you for any help.

Have you tried looking for the driver at driverguide.com? If you haven't the username you need is drivers and the password is all.

I am not an expert, but I do not believe you can move XP around as you describe and still be able to boot into it. I have used Drive Image to copy XP to a different hard drive, but I believe it worked because the XP partition was as the beginning of the new drive. If you were to copy XP back to the original hard drive, I think it would be behind the Win 98 partition and that would make the XP partition unbootable. Furthermore, if I understand you correctly, lilo is installed at the beginning of the XP partition, so that would also be unbootable. If I am wrong feel free to correct me, I am curious to understand how it all works. I should back up my stuff and do some experimentation to figure it all out, but I usually don't have time.

I wish I knew enough to help you out, but I don't. I have a few ideas, but without experimenting I have no idea if they would work.

Talk about ambitious. Gotta hand it to you for that

But rather than go to all of the trouble, why don't you simply use the driver that is already in XP?

http://www.driverforum.com/controller5/10175.html


Here's the pertinent stuff:


John

Even though I think that we got this covered in my previous post, I just can't help but admire someone who thinks big.


Okay, very doable in PM.

Or, you can convert the XP NTFS partition to FAT32 using PM and then use:

http://www.sysresccd.org/

to create a image of your partition

Hint: image sizes can only be a max of 4 gigs each, however you can create as many as you need to backup the partition. So, if you wanted to backup ("ghost") your 40 gig partition/drive, you would end up with 10 files named xxxx01 - xxxx10. Got it?

So why would you want to convert the partition from NTFS to FAT32?

1) You wouldn't have to buy Drive Image.

2) You would be able to read/write from linux. Currently writing to NTFS is extremely dodgy (reading works fine, but writing/deleting/moving doesn't. And yes, I've used Captive)

Okay. Easy. Sort of. Be sure to convert the partition to FAT32 (or simply delete it and recreate it as FAT32 in PM). Win98 doesn't support NTFS.

Just don't forget. The FDISK.EXE that comes with 98 won't know what to do with with the NTFS partition. You will have to deal with it either with PM or fdisk in linux.

You sort of lost me here, I assume that you mean putting the XP image on the second (linux) drive. The answer is yes, but I believe that the partition needs to be in place before rebuilding the image (but this is why qtparted is included with sysresccd).

Now you've really lost me. Once you sixe (shrink) the linux partition for XP you wouldn't resize it back to the original size. Are you thinking that you will need a temporary holding place for XP? If that's the case, copy the image files to your linux partition and don't bother resizing the linux partition.

Yes.

Ruin it.

Be sure to uninstall it either from linux or from the bootable Windows system disk that you are going to create before you do anything.

Be sure to include FDISK.EXE on it so that you can run "FDISK.EXE /MBR" to remove lilo/grub.

You will have to re-install your MBR (using lilo or grub) once you get everything sorted. You can do this from either your Mandy CD or a rescue disk like sysrescd.


Probably, XP certainly isn't going to like getting put on the second drive (could be wrong about that though).

Resizing XP and putting 98 on the first disk sounds like the simplest method. How big is your XP drive?


Oh! I remember this. This is the default behavior of the full install (as opposed to the upgrade) CD. What a pain in the arse.

Danged if I can find out how to avoid this... IIRC, I think that it's a SETUP.EXE option.



Two whole gigs? WooT!

Don't bother


Anytime


John

well, what i meant was to take the xp image i had made on the linux drive (hd2) and create a partition after the 98 partition (hd1) and store it there. since 98 likes to be first on the hd... i figure i would install 98 and leave it a couple gigs (i only want it to run the flight simulator with the joystick...) and then "fake install" xp, by throwing that xp partition in front of it. thus leaving my linux disk with the free space that xp partition occupied, needing me to resize it back to normal. so what i was basically asking... is would i have to do a real install of xp after 98? or could i just throw that partition in front of it and it would think of it as bieng installed? cause i read that is the way to have a 98/xp dual boot... is to install xp after 98... but i will try the solution of unistalling the controller and see what xp does with it... thank you all for your help...

I was attempting to do this for my elderly grand pa... who i just convinced to try out linux. i installed linux a few days ago on his system, and now i am trying to get his joystick to work for him. he says he "has windows a certain way, he doesn't want it mest up" by me just backing up important things... such as user profiles, registries and the works... and just freshly installing xp after 98... if it was my computer i was dealing with... i would have just backed up all my important stuff, and done the above. well... i think when i get home (i live in tx, in fla right now...) i am going to do this just for fun... see the outcome... good little experiment to have some fun with. once again, thanks everyone for your help!

btw... i am no experienced linux user myself... i just started using linux about a week ago! so... that is why i have very little knowledge of linux... and dual booting for that matter! it's all very fun though.

Oh anytime, that's what we do

I think that you should be able to install 98, resize it, create a partition for XP and restore XP with no problem. The first thing that I would do is to remove lilo from the MBR so that the boot process has no problem finding XP.

I have no idea of what it would take to add 98 to XP's boot record.

Quote:

I was attempting to do this for my elderly grand pa... who i just convinced to try out linux. i installed linux a few days ago on his system, and now i am trying to get his joystick to work for him. he says he "has windows a certain way, he doesn't want it mest up" by me just backing up important

Whatever you do, don't get him mad. It would be really embarassing to get fragged by Grandpa.

Quote:

btw... i am no experienced linux user myself... i just started using linux about a week ago! so... that is why i have very little knowledge of linux... and dual booting for that matter! it's all very fun though.

Welcome aboard


John