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I would like to know how I can set up Win XP to dualboot, so that I can run Linux. I am new to Linux and have no idea to do it.
I've never done it with XP, but it should be the same thing.. Microsoft OS's put the bootloader for the OS on the firstblock on the partition it's on, so YOu can install the Linux boot loader (Lilo or GRUB on the Master Boot Record for the drive) Ok first install XP, leaving unpartitioned space on your HD for the linux installation. then run the linux install (boot from the CD), go throught the install, Manually partition your drive, (you don't want it blowing away your windows partitions), then go through the install and when it asks you where to install the bootloader, choose MBR (master boot record). Then when you reboot it will ask you which to boot.
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That's right I have XP and Suse Linux and Mandrake all on the same machine without any errors. Simply do what he said and it will work.
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I have a Dell LapTop with factory installed XP-Pro. It has 30Gb disk all formatted as NTFS. Can I just install Linux Mandrake on top of it.
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You cannot install Linux on a NTFS partition - It uses ext2.
If you just want Linux as a single OS you boot the Linux install CD and during the install you remove the NTFS partition and make new ext2 partition(s) for Linux. Then go ahead with the install.If you want to run both XP and Linux - first repartition your disk with Partition Magic or Fips. If, for some reason, you cannot use those programs(Partition Magic is not free and I don't know if Fips works with XP) you have to reinstall your XP and at the install screen you leave space for Linux. Then Install Linux and during the install you put LILO on the Master Boot Record(MBR) and choose which operating system that should boot as default. Then you have a dual boot system.
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I forgot one thing, sorry! Some people have problems if they want a dual boot system and use XP's own partition tool. Instead, use Linux Fdisk to partition your disk and then boot the XP cd and install XP on the partition of your choice. Once that is done you install Linux (with LILO on the MBR) Choose Linux as active and XP as the other option. Voilá - you're done :-)
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How do I dualboot XP and Linux, when using two different physical hard drive. HD1 aka C:\ 40 meg and HD2 20 meg with Red Hat 7.2 on it. Can a batch file be written to give you a choice which one to but, like the old NT/95 dualboot batch file? I really would like to just turn on the machine, and have a batch file ask me which one I want to boot up, XP or Red Hat 7.2 being on different physical hard drives. Thanks
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You can boot from the NTLDR if windows is your primary OS. That is the way I like it.
Install both each in different partitions, they can be partitions on the same disk or different. Make sure that when you install linux that lilo gets installed to the "super block of the root partition" not the mbr (master boot record). Make sure you make a boot disk for linux so you can get back into it after installing. Sometimes you can use the install cd. From the boot prompt do something like this:
boot: linux root=/dev/hda1 ro
Anyway. After installing, boot back into linux using the boot disk. Once there mount a dos floppy
mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
(this may be different for your system)then do an image copy
dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/mnt/floppy/linux.img bs=512 count=1this will take the first 512 bytes of the first partition on the first ide disk (hda1) and put it into a file called linux.img on the dos floppy you just mounted.
Note: i have used hda1 in these examples which is the first partition on the first disk. Depending on where you install linux, this will probably not be the same for you. You can look in /etc/lilo.conf and it should say there.
Reboot into windows and copy the linux.img file into c:\ this is the location of ntldr and boot.ini among other interesting files. You may have to edit the folder properties to display hidden and system files to see these.
Then edit boot.ini in notepad and add the line:
c:\linux.img="linux"
to the bottom of the file. You should be able to reboot and have the ntldr menu come up with the "linux" entry at the bottom. You should select this and see lilo and be able to boot into linux.
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Side note: i am having trouble getting this to work with XP, but had success with it with windows 2000. I don't know if this is because I let XP partition the disk as someone mentioned above or not.
HELP:
I have two physical Hardisks a 40GB master and a 6GB slave. The 40 was partitioned by win2000 install disk and has 3 NTFS partitions. The first has win2k the second has winxp and the third is for data storage. The second disk was partitioned with fdisk and has slackware linux. With this setup, I cannot use the above described method to use NTLDR to boot linux. I keep trying and it doesn't work. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.
The last install I had which did work was 98/2000/XPbeta/linux and that was the same hardware configuration and the windows disk was partitioned by windows install and the linux disk, by fdisk. It worked then...the only thing that changed was that I went to XPfinal.
The current install: the windows disk was partitioned by windows2000 setup (because I installed that first), and that worked before... Any info...please please please help. Matthew_Probert@hotmail.com
Kind regards,
Matt Probert
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