Dual boot system
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I am finally breaking down and going to try our PCLinuxOS and dive deeper into the Linux world. I don't want to get rid of Windows XP so I'm wanting to install this on my secondary (250GB) drive. I've never had a dual-boot system (I know a newbie to many things) and am wanting to know how hard is it to setup a system like this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as I want to get it right the first time (if possible) so as to not screw my system.
"Well yes, it is an Integer, but it's a metrosexual Integer. For all we know, under all that hair gel it could be a Boolean." Tom Welch
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I am finally breaking down and going to try our PCLinuxOS and dive deeper into the Linux world. I don't want to get rid of Windows XP so I'm wanting to install this on my secondary (250GB) drive. I've never had a dual-boot system (I know a newbie to many things) and am wanting to know how hard is it to setup a system like this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as I want to get it right the first time (if possible) so as to not screw my system.
"Well yes, it is an Integer, but it's a metrosexual Integer. For all we know, under all that hair gel it could be a Boolean." Tom Welch
First, backup your important files (specially if you doing this first time) - I'm telling this because when I did this first, I didn't know about FDISK commands and didn't know about "/", "/swap" things and I ended up making my hard disk only one drive(40 GB)!!! Its a long way thing, I highly recommended you not to try in some HD which has some important data. Best option will be to install (for practice :) ) in a spare drive first and you know what if you play with Linux, I'm damn sure you're gonna love it, and you can't stay away from it because its so cool. :cool:
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I am finally breaking down and going to try our PCLinuxOS and dive deeper into the Linux world. I don't want to get rid of Windows XP so I'm wanting to install this on my secondary (250GB) drive. I've never had a dual-boot system (I know a newbie to many things) and am wanting to know how hard is it to setup a system like this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as I want to get it right the first time (if possible) so as to not screw my system.
"Well yes, it is an Integer, but it's a metrosexual Integer. For all we know, under all that hair gel it could be a Boolean." Tom Welch
As always, Google is your friend: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pclinuxos+xp+dual+boot[^] And when you're at it anyway, why not try Ubuntu? Triple booting, baby...https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot[^]
Cheers, Fredrik
"Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas." -
I am finally breaking down and going to try our PCLinuxOS and dive deeper into the Linux world. I don't want to get rid of Windows XP so I'm wanting to install this on my secondary (250GB) drive. I've never had a dual-boot system (I know a newbie to many things) and am wanting to know how hard is it to setup a system like this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as I want to get it right the first time (if possible) so as to not screw my system.
"Well yes, it is an Integer, but it's a metrosexual Integer. For all we know, under all that hair gel it could be a Boolean." Tom Welch
Step1: If you have a friend that has PartitionMagic, it's a good thing, since you'll need to borrow it if you have XP installed over the full 250GB drive and don't want to lose that installation. Otherwise plug in an extra HDD. If you've borrowed and installed PM, resize the XP partition from 250GB to 100GB and then create a 70GB storage partition formatted as FAT32. Leave the rest of the space unpartitioned. Step2: Install the OS of your choice in the unpartitioned space and make sure to also install a boot manager such as the FreeBSD Boot Manager or LiLO(LinuxLoader). You are pretty much done then and you can either boot to XP and look for missing drivers or you can continue configuring the *nix installation. I've had many machines that Dual-Boot into FreeBSD but i've never had the time to learn it properly, so i just log in as root (admin), dig around various obscure config files (man pages are your friend) and then go back to regular work for the next few weeks:laugh:. Make sure to remember little things like the gzip/gunzip command as well as how to use make and the various params that come with them, since this is something you need to know to install other software. I suggest you get comfrotable with the command line/terminal and vi (the editor) before you turn to the GUI side (i used Gnome, but most seem to prefer KDE, which i haven't tried). Have fun :) Roswell [edit] - nevermind, i misread ... the 250GB is your secondary:doh:
"Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
Antonio VillaRaigosa
City Mayor, Los Angeles, CA -
I am finally breaking down and going to try our PCLinuxOS and dive deeper into the Linux world. I don't want to get rid of Windows XP so I'm wanting to install this on my secondary (250GB) drive. I've never had a dual-boot system (I know a newbie to many things) and am wanting to know how hard is it to setup a system like this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as I want to get it right the first time (if possible) so as to not screw my system.
"Well yes, it is an Integer, but it's a metrosexual Integer. For all we know, under all that hair gel it could be a Boolean." Tom Welch
Always always always install XP first. If you put Ubuntu onto a second drive then it will set up the dual boot menu automatically, no problem. For what it's worth I tried Ubuntu for a couple of years but Linux really isn't ready for the desktop yet. I got frustrated when, after updates were installed, hardware and software stopped working, and Google searches showed that the problems were old ones that hadn't been patched. Time to go back to 'doze, I decided.
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I am finally breaking down and going to try our PCLinuxOS and dive deeper into the Linux world. I don't want to get rid of Windows XP so I'm wanting to install this on my secondary (250GB) drive. I've never had a dual-boot system (I know a newbie to many things) and am wanting to know how hard is it to setup a system like this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as I want to get it right the first time (if possible) so as to not screw my system.
"Well yes, it is an Integer, but it's a metrosexual Integer. For all we know, under all that hair gel it could be a Boolean." Tom Welch
Windows and Linux dual boot always has issue with the Boot Menu getting overwritten. You ought to take special attention to this.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
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I am finally breaking down and going to try our PCLinuxOS and dive deeper into the Linux world. I don't want to get rid of Windows XP so I'm wanting to install this on my secondary (250GB) drive. I've never had a dual-boot system (I know a newbie to many things) and am wanting to know how hard is it to setup a system like this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as I want to get it right the first time (if possible) so as to not screw my system.
"Well yes, it is an Integer, but it's a metrosexual Integer. For all we know, under all that hair gel it could be a Boolean." Tom Welch
Install Windows first, then Linux. Choose GRUB over LILO as a boot-manager if you have the choice. Install GRUB (or LILO, if all else fails) into the MBR, NOT into the Linux partition. Take care: IF you choose to uninstall Linux, you will probably want to remove GRUB as well. GRUB, however, does keep some of its files on your Linux-partition and will fail to boot if you just delete it. If you need to uninstall Linux, boot up you Windows CD and use FDISK /MBR on the DOS Prompt (<=WinMe) or FIXMBR in Repair Mode (WinXP etc.) to restore the "Windows MBR". You can then delete the Linux partitions. There is no need to use Partition Magic. GPartEd has a free boot-CD and could even resize NTFS partitions, last time I checked.
Cheers, Sebastian -- "If it was two men, the non-driver would have challenged the driver to simply crash through the gates. The macho image thing, you know." - Marc Clifton
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I am finally breaking down and going to try our PCLinuxOS and dive deeper into the Linux world. I don't want to get rid of Windows XP so I'm wanting to install this on my secondary (250GB) drive. I've never had a dual-boot system (I know a newbie to many things) and am wanting to know how hard is it to setup a system like this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as I want to get it right the first time (if possible) so as to not screw my system.
"Well yes, it is an Integer, but it's a metrosexual Integer. For all we know, under all that hair gel it could be a Boolean." Tom Welch
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Step1: If you have a friend that has PartitionMagic, it's a good thing, since you'll need to borrow it if you have XP installed over the full 250GB drive and don't want to lose that installation. Otherwise plug in an extra HDD. If you've borrowed and installed PM, resize the XP partition from 250GB to 100GB and then create a 70GB storage partition formatted as FAT32. Leave the rest of the space unpartitioned. Step2: Install the OS of your choice in the unpartitioned space and make sure to also install a boot manager such as the FreeBSD Boot Manager or LiLO(LinuxLoader). You are pretty much done then and you can either boot to XP and look for missing drivers or you can continue configuring the *nix installation. I've had many machines that Dual-Boot into FreeBSD but i've never had the time to learn it properly, so i just log in as root (admin), dig around various obscure config files (man pages are your friend) and then go back to regular work for the next few weeks:laugh:. Make sure to remember little things like the gzip/gunzip command as well as how to use make and the various params that come with them, since this is something you need to know to install other software. I suggest you get comfrotable with the command line/terminal and vi (the editor) before you turn to the GUI side (i used Gnome, but most seem to prefer KDE, which i haven't tried). Have fun :) Roswell [edit] - nevermind, i misread ... the 250GB is your secondary:doh:
"Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
Antonio VillaRaigosa
City Mayor, Los Angeles, CARoswellNX wrote:
...you'll need to borrow it...
I hope you're not suggesting software piracy there...
-- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
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I am finally breaking down and going to try our PCLinuxOS and dive deeper into the Linux world. I don't want to get rid of Windows XP so I'm wanting to install this on my secondary (250GB) drive. I've never had a dual-boot system (I know a newbie to many things) and am wanting to know how hard is it to setup a system like this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as I want to get it right the first time (if possible) so as to not screw my system.
"Well yes, it is an Integer, but it's a metrosexual Integer. For all we know, under all that hair gel it could be a Boolean." Tom Welch
It is a lot easier and safer to just pick up a cheap HD drive drawer. You simply slide out the drive and slide in a different one with a different OS. It is also great for security as you can pull your drive and store it anywhere you want.
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: Linq - One-to-One issues? Latest Tech Blog Post: ESnailer... Send postal mail for free!
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Step1: If you have a friend that has PartitionMagic, it's a good thing, since you'll need to borrow it if you have XP installed over the full 250GB drive and don't want to lose that installation. Otherwise plug in an extra HDD. If you've borrowed and installed PM, resize the XP partition from 250GB to 100GB and then create a 70GB storage partition formatted as FAT32. Leave the rest of the space unpartitioned. Step2: Install the OS of your choice in the unpartitioned space and make sure to also install a boot manager such as the FreeBSD Boot Manager or LiLO(LinuxLoader). You are pretty much done then and you can either boot to XP and look for missing drivers or you can continue configuring the *nix installation. I've had many machines that Dual-Boot into FreeBSD but i've never had the time to learn it properly, so i just log in as root (admin), dig around various obscure config files (man pages are your friend) and then go back to regular work for the next few weeks:laugh:. Make sure to remember little things like the gzip/gunzip command as well as how to use make and the various params that come with them, since this is something you need to know to install other software. I suggest you get comfrotable with the command line/terminal and vi (the editor) before you turn to the GUI side (i used Gnome, but most seem to prefer KDE, which i haven't tried). Have fun :) Roswell [edit] - nevermind, i misread ... the 250GB is your secondary:doh:
"Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
Antonio VillaRaigosa
City Mayor, Los Angeles, CARoswellNX wrote:
...PartitionMagic...
I would say head on over to Acronis[^] and have a look at Disk Director Suite 10[^] much better than PartitionMagic, supports Vista and creates it's own bootable CD. I picked up True Image Home 10, Disk Director Suite 10 and Disk CLeanser 6 a couple of weeks ago for USD$89.99. When I ran the Bootable Media creator it loaded all 3 applications on to the one bootable CD. One of the better purchases I have made recently.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
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RoswellNX wrote:
...you'll need to borrow it...
I hope you're not suggesting software piracy there...
-- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
No, but i do have a legal copy and i carry it with me on a thumb drive in case i'll need to use it on a client's machine (and i promptly remove it when i'm done, so no one is getting a free lunch). But i doubt a friend would make this kind of a housecall free for you, so you'd probably have to borrow it yourself and return it the next day. Roswell
"Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
Antonio VillaRaigosa
City Mayor, Los Angeles, CA -
Always always always install XP first. If you put Ubuntu onto a second drive then it will set up the dual boot menu automatically, no problem. For what it's worth I tried Ubuntu for a couple of years but Linux really isn't ready for the desktop yet. I got frustrated when, after updates were installed, hardware and software stopped working, and Google searches showed that the problems were old ones that hadn't been patched. Time to go back to 'doze, I decided.
XP also sets up the dual boot menu. Last installed at top, in case you ever dual boot 2 same version XPs. Works fine for me, apart from forgetting to be at the computer when the menu appears.
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