I'm trying to install a winXP/linux (redhat 7.1) dual-boot machine. I created these partitions (all Fat32) on my 60G drive: - 3 gig (intended winXP C:) - 256M (intended linux /boot) - 256M (intended linux swap) - 10G (intended linux /) - ~47G (intended WinXP D:) My problems are these: 1) If I install redhat 7.1 first, it installs fine. When I install WinXP however (selecting the 3G partition, and telling it to format to NTFS) It installs, and recognizes the two windows partitions (3G ntfs, 47G fat32). After this, my redhat installation becomes unusable (even with a boot disk). The partitions all still look fine (under winXPs diskpart anyway). If I try to re-install redhat, I get an "unknown partition type 0" sort of error, and it aborts the install. 2) If I install XP first, same result as 1 above when I try to install redhat (unknown partition type 0). When I look at the partition types in WinXp's diskpart (the only partition prog I have that will handle ntfs) it does show that the 47G partition is of type 0. So I used diskpart to delete and recreate the partition (bam, lost my D: drive), but the partition now has the correct type. Still no go when installing linux, it gives the same error. Of course, now my Xp installation wont boot. When I reinstalled XP, I noticed that on install, it thinkgs there is now an extra 8M partition at the end of the partition list. It says something about this being where XP holds it's partition information. I'm wondering if this is the bad partition that linux is complaining about. The only thing I can think of now is to try installing XP to a fat32 partition (not sure if it will) and see if that helps. The other option would be to leave a small (64M or something) fat32 dos partition at the start, then install XP on the second partition. Just wondering if anyone has seen this, or knows how to fix it? Thanks in advance, Chris chris@codefast.com ckoch@home.com

Just one question (Im dont know much about XP) ,but why do you use FAT32 and NTFS partition for the Windows XP? When you enter windows,just copy loadlin from the CD you have (RedHat) and vmlinuz and load linux.Then edit the /etc/lilo.conf When you configured it,save the file,exit and install it by typing "lilo". If you configured it properly everyting should work.

Well, the problem isnt really that I dont know how to boot linux (lilo or loadlin should both work), but that I cannot install linux in the first place to boot it. The loadlin fix would allow me to boot linux without using lilo, but ONLY if linux is installed, which it is not :( Thanks for trying though. Chris

I have mandrake 8.0, redhat 7.1, windows 3.1 - Dos 6.21, and Windows 98 on one computer, using two hard drives. I have to use boot disks for everything but Windows 98, which boots by default. Get tomsrtbt linux (fits on a floppy), and use fdisk in it to set up partitions for your linux installations. I installed windows 98 first, and I assume that you can do that with XP also, and then use System Commander to reduce the size of the Windows partition to say, 10GB. Don't stay with System commander, just disable it, and go to tomsrtbt linux to set up your Linux native "/", swap and "/home" for your first linux installation, say Mandrake 8. You can do Redhat 7.1 if you prefer. It will go to the extended partitions you have set up with tomsrtbt linux fdisk, and install there. make a boot floppy during the installation, and do not worry about lilo or grub,it won't work on big HDD's. tosmrtbt linux will tell you that when you fdisk /hda At this point you can boot normally into XP, without a bootloader, etc. just turn the computer on. To get to your Linux, insert the boot disk the install had you make, and you will go right to your linux.

I've got Linux 6.2 and XP installed on a mediocre 12GB HD and everything runs ok. However I did have problems setting it up. For me the problem was loading lilo during boot up, it just stopped at "li" and hangs. Assuming you have something similiar, the solution is to ensure that you put the boot directory of your linux in the first 2GB of your primary HD. One word of advice is to partition your drive using fdisk in Linux, ensure that the space you allocated for the boot dir is of linux native, this prevents windows from reading it. If this was waffle then sorry. Hope it is of some use :)

Too tired to read half that crap from above.. too much for the eyes. I put NT and Linux 7.0 on my boss's laptop without a hitch. And used the same method with XP and Linux 7.2 so I know they work.. Both conditions have same hard drive used. Install XP (fat32 if ya want to share files between) or NTFS and a small fat32 to use a share between them. Install Linux but do not install lilo into the MBR install it into the boot part (the other option) I didn't use grub either make the boot disk. After install make sure ya can still boot XP and use floppy to boot Linux. Can boot both still continue otherwise error. make a dos floppy boot into linux using linux boot floppy do a 'df -h' look for the /boot should be something like /dev/hda2 or /dev/hhda5 or wherever ya put the damn thing. found it? the if=/dev/hda2 should be where your /boot is mounted so plug it in as needed below. do a 'dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1' this will copy boot infor to your / goto / and see (cd /) bootsect.lnx then put in your dos floppy and so the follow mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt (mount floppy) cp bootsect.lnx /mnt (copy to floppy) then ls the /mnt to see if there umount /mnt ( unmount floppy) now boot into XP and goto command promt cd \ to the root of c: and type the follow attrib -r -s -h boot.ini edit boot.ini add the line c:\bootsect.lnx="linux" to the bottom of the boot.ini file save and exit the type attrib +r +s +h boot.ini reboot and now you can boot both. Have done this several times. You can also search for the method to dual boot NT thats what i did the first time. except DO NOT INSATLL LILO INTO THE MBR doing a fdisk/mbr wouldn't even fix it untill I relized that I got rid of lilo when I did that and would have to use the boot floppy each time I wanted linux. Good luck with it. After the first time you can punch it out easliy. aside from typos

It on my website as well. http://www.poopoccurs.com I just put it up the instructions.