dual boot

greyfox007 · 03-31-2005, 01:41 AM

i'm tring to boot mandrake 10.1 and windows xp, created 2 partitions in dos and installed xp on the 2nd partition first. then i installed mandrake on the first and set up lilo to boot windows, but its not booting. when i select windows, i'm taken to a blank screen and nothing happens.

Mega Man X · 03-31-2005, 01:44 AM

yeah, Windows likes to be on the first partition. Linux does not really care. If you have nothing important on your HD, format, install Windows first, on the first partition then Linux. It should work without a hitch doing that

greyfox007 · 03-31-2005, 01:58 AM

ok thanks, i'll do that now

greyfox007 · 03-31-2005, 03:30 AM

yup that did it, thx Megaman X

Mega Man X · 03-31-2005, 05:18 AM

Not a problem. You are most welcome greyfox007

. I'd also like to advice you on the partition table. Linux cannot write safely to NTFS partitions, so if you are going to dual boot and would like to share a partition with Linux - Windows, make a partition of type FAT32, so both Linux and Windows can use that partition. It's just an advice, you are free to do what you please, I just found that quite handy

.

Good luck mate!

greyfox007 · 04-01-2005, 02:34 AM

yea that is handy, but i thought they would have solved that problem by now. i used mandrake 9.1 a while back and i know you can only read ntfs from linux, you think they will ever come up with a way to do it?

Padma · 04-01-2005, 09:49 AM

Actually, greyfox, they *have* come up with a way. Search for "captive ntfs". It uses the exisiting Windows ntfs drivers to handle everything, so there are no mistakes.

Supposedly it is still "experimental", but most people who have used it say it works great.