Dual-booting help - Linux + MS xp?

Question

I actully want to run linux and windows under one harddrive. I have enough ram, space, processer speed, and memory. Im not really understanding how to do it. Anyone got any tips/help you can provide for me?

OR

Creating a partition is easy. But how can i install the other os on the other partition and boot from any os.

Thanks for the ones who help me.

Answer 1

Hi, if you have partition magic, its a bit easier...but, basically...

you want to format the drive in half I suppose. half is NTFS for windows. The other half format as fat32, install windows first, then linux will be able to see the fat drive and format it as reiser fs if possible or ext3. Reiser is much better than ext 3 but it will work fine with ext3.

hope that helps
its pretty straight forward.

Nigel

Answer 2

Hello,

When you insert the installation media for a popular Linux OS or for Windows during the initial setup they have the option to create partitions on your current hard drive to put the installation contents. When you choose this feature it is usually pretty basic like telling the OS how much of the Hard Drive will be designated for the OS and what order the partitions will be in.

Also for Linux OS's they will probably recommend a small Linux Swap partition with is a good idea to put in.

As for the boot loader, again most installation media will include a boot loader such as GRUB which will automatically be installed to enable you to choose what OS you want to run when you restart the computer.

Also, many BIOS's will have built in identification of operating systems installed and will allow you to choose what partition to boot into without any additional boot loader program.

Hope this Helps! Best of Luck!

Answer 3

You should read the manual of your linux distro if any to see how to create a boot loader.. Linux allows you to dual boot. If you have a lot of disk space try reinstalling Linux or install another Linux distro that creates a boot loader during instalation. You then will have one Windows partition and one or two linux partitions depending on what you do.

Answer 4

Hi,

Best practice, first install your Microsoft stuff...WinXP...or whatever..
But leave un-partition space for Linux..
Depending of the size of your hard drive, 10 GB for each will be sufficient, so 10GB for Winxp, 10GB for Linux..

After your done with Winxp, shutdown your computer, put your Linux CD or DVD in the drive and boot from it...
It will start the installation process of your Linux ...just go ahead it will lead you trough it..

-R.

Answer 5

To set up Windows XP and Ubuntu from:

http://www.ubuntu.org

as Dual-Boot (watch the Video below):