OK. I have 2 NTFS partitions- one that I install everything on, and the other with music, documents, ISO's, movies, etc. Both are 80 gig.

I have partition magic, and thought that'd be the easiest way to make a linux partition. Whenever I try, I put the linux partition before both ntfs. After I boot into slack and install, it is the only thing that shows up in LILO. So, I always pop in a windows disk, format the "hidden NTFS," and go on with windows.

Am I placing the partition in the wrong spot? Please help! I'm very noob with linux...I use solaris daily, but not very in depth. Thanks~

Andrew

Linux should go after Windows - it makes Windows happier. When you come to set up Lilo, do not choose "Simple", Lilo only shows Slackware. And Linux has read only (and limited read only at that) access to NTFS, if you want to share files between Win and Linux, you need a FAT 32 partition.

I can't mount the NTFS partition in slack 10? I thought you could...

If not, how else can I get all my music and stuff over to linux?

Andrew

cat /proc/filesystems
will show you what filesystem is compatible with your system

[edit]
I did not read carefully, I see you don't install slack yet.
Did you configure your lilo config to be able to dual boot ? And if you plan to install linux & windows, a good procedure is to install windows first.

First, create a FAT32 partition after the NTFS, bit enough to hold your data and other files you want to transfer. I'm assuming you don't want to change the NTFS to FAT32.

Second, partition a swap partition (about 500MB) and a linux partition AFTER the NTFS and FAT32. During the install, be sure to give mount point names to the FAT32 windows partition. This will make sure Slack puts it in fstab and that it will be avaible in Linux.

From Windows, copy the files you need to the FAT32 drive. Then in Linux, you can copy from the FAT32 to linux. A bit of a kludge, I know but it does work. I have XP, which I formatted as FAT32, since security of the files is not an issue on my home pc and that makes life easier. Actually I even use Thunderbird on both OS's and they save onto the XP drive. Kinda neat.

Good luck!

Barbara

you can move files from the NTFS partition to Linux, just not the other way around. from my experiance.

edit: sorry, well technically it is possible to transfer files from linux into the NTFS, the way i did it was used a program for windows that allows it to view ext2/ext3 filesystems n browsed my linux partion and grabbed what i wanted. no FAT32 partition needed.

You should be able to read NTFS partitions from linux with no problem. To write to NTFS requires recompiling the kernel, and can be dangerous.

To have your windows partition in lilo you will need to edit your lilo.conf file (/etc/lilo.conf) to include windows. I think it is like this

# Start win partition. This is a comment. It is optional.
other = /dev/hda1 (or whatever partition windows is on)
label = Win
# End win partition.

I think that is all you need, I am pretty sure that is all you should have to add (I have not run a dual boot system in a while.)

After you update your lilo.conf you will need to run lilo as root (just type lilo) and you should see:
added Linux*
added Win

whichever one you want to be the default should be first in lilo.conf, and that one should ahve the * by it.

If what basics said doesn't work try adding in the next line after label=Win, boot-as = 0x80

EDIT: Forgot to say, there's a plugin for Total Commander that allows you to see Linux partitions under Windows. Total Commander is a nagware (it pops a nasty window when you open it) filecommander for Windows and the plug-in can be found on it's official page (the plug-in is free).
Total Commander - http://www.ghisler.com/

Btw, looking for TC's homepage i found this clone for Linux, looks promising: http://btuska.web.elte.hu/vc/index.html

Nagware? Total Commander???
It's the first app I install everytime I install windows.

Try buying it if think the popupscreen at startup is annoying!!! That's why it's there. Duh!

Another elegant solution to view ext2/3 partitions from within Windows is Explore2fs. No nag screens, just an Explorer-like interface. Very cool

Baldrick