I have Linux Mandrake 9.2 on cd, I want to duel boot it with my pre-exhisting Windows XP. I tried to restart with the Mandrake installation CD in and it wasn't detected , I tried the floppy boot and still wasn't detected. So can I not duel boot Mandrake 9.2 with Windows XP? If I can, how? Also do I need to partition my drive now or will the Mandrake setup prompt me to? And last am I going to lose everything I already have? ie: windows xp and all personal files,songs....? Any help would be appreciated, thanks guys

Reboot your computer. As soon as it comes on, hit F2. You'll be in BIOS. Move down until you get to Boot Sequence. Change the settings using + and - until your CD drive is listed as #1. Reboot. I think Mandrake can partition it for you if it must. Personally, I created an unallocation partition and Mandrake was able to detect it as free space to install to. Btw, Mandrake comes with the Lilo bootloader which allows you to choose between XP and Linux at startup.

I have Mandrake 9.2 dual booting with XP Pro using GRUB. It installed really easily, but i partitioned manually to make absolutely sure it left my windows alone ;) The only problem I have now is that GRUB is installed on my MBR, and when I want to reinstall windows it will want to write its own bootloader to the MBR, and it's very likely that my partition table will be destroyed. d'oh. For this reason I'd recommend if at all possible to have mandrake on a separate physical drive (Unless someone can tell me a way to install the NTLoader whilst leaving my parition table intact).

So if I partition ahead of time and do what syzygy said it will work and I wont lose anything on my windows? see what I'm going for is not losing all my stuff.. and scott why would you reinstall windows if you already have it working with mandrake

"...why would you reinstall windows..." 'coz you just have to sometimes!=o) "...Unless someone can tell me a way to install the NTLoader whilst leaving my parition table intact..." Easiest way would be to make sure you have a boot disk for linux (floppy or CD) so that after re-installing windoze and it overwriting your MBR you can boot into linux and reinstall lilo/grub.

Create a partition on your hard drive (after winXP) and leave it blank. Set your boot sequence to be CD first( as above). The CD will then boot your system - make sure you install Linux into the new parition. It might created new ones within this - i'd let it do what it wants. LILO or grub will go onto the MBR and stop winXP loading - you can make your choice. If you want to use windows (mad fool) partition magic 8.0 is pretty good this sort of thing (dont use boot magic tho or you'll end up with two boot managers!!). I would say that it's rather dangerous to partition hardisks with stuff on u want to keep - bitter personal experience! If you reinstalled a windows system onto the first partition(no need to) it would overwrite the MBR (ty Microsoft) and you would have to put LILO/Grub back on. Sorry for the length - I had a lot of problems with this - could write an essay!

Hi there, Just followed these instructions and found that mandrake overwrites the xp mbr and once you reboot you cannot get back into windows xp, I had to re write the mbr using the rescue function fixmbr and fixboot on the orig xp cd, so I'm afraid mandrake gets scrubbed off the list to try, I am not very experienced at this type of thing and I would like to assess linux for my needs but I do not want to get "my hands dirty" before I even have a gui for linux on my screen and unable to use windows, red hat didn't intefere at all and I was able to boot into either rh or xp from the loader. snadge