how can i partition the free space on my HD, without loosing my windows XP. i want to run Mandriva mostly but my system cant really handle run apps through wine, running programs and especially games would be really slow. does any one know how to partition free space on an hd with XP on it? i have the Live CD for mandriva and a disk for XP Pro. both work, I've tested both.


[moved from Software by spinynorman]

When you are booting Mandriva ready to install it, there is a graphical partition tool, whereby you can choose custom and then resize the Windows partition to make it smaller and make space for Linux. Then once you have free space, you can create some partitions to install Linux into - namely swap, / and /home. This is the default normally, and enough for most machines. Depending on amount of memory in your machine, swap can be 512MB or 1GB, / can be 10GB minimum so that you could do a full install of most things, with some space free, although I tend to allocate 20GB for /. Then the rest of the space for /home.

Make sure you defrag the Windows partition first if you want to ensure success at obtaining enough space to install Linux on this machine.

Don't try anything fancy when it comes to the bootloader setup.
Just let the Grub bootloader install to the mbr. Don't fiddle around with putting it anywhere else.
Sure it will replace the windows bootloader but that doesn't matter because grub will detect your Windows OS and add it to the boot menu. This way you will be able to select either Windows or Linux to boot up. The more you fiddle then the more you are likely to screw things up.

Cheers. John

can i get GRUB to recognize windows on another hard drive? im a little too paranoid of losing my files when i partition.

You mean you have a windows installation on another HD? or just some files you wanna be able to access?

If it's the former yes GRUB will do that, if it doesn't do that automatically then after you install Mandriva open the Mandriva control centre>boot >set up boot system>next>add>other os (windows).... Give it a label (any label you like, like windows xp ,vista whatever) the in the Root box point it to the C:\ drive of the other HD i.e. the first partition of the other HD. If OTOH it's the latter then yes you will be able to access any windows partitions from Mandriva.

nope, it was the former, and thanks. that helped a lot!

actually, it doesnt say that in the root. i titled it then sleceted hdb1, which is correct, i checked the properties on the drive in the Storage Medis.


it showed up on grub, but it didnt boot the drive, it said something about partitions. how do i fix dat?

If using grub, then post the contents of /boot/grub/menu.lst or /boot/grub/grub.conf - as I'm not sure which one is being used by Mandy right now. Then we can help, but also post the results from:



so we can see your partition list.

Just in case the -l is a lower-case L

actualy thanks i thought it was a 1.

timeout 30
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=71ab40b2-554c-4fa4-a6c9-ffbd70df50ee resume=/dev/hda5 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=UUID=71ab40b2-554c-4fa4-a6c9-ffbd70df50ee resume=/dev/hda5
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=71ab40b2-554c-4fa4-a6c9-ffbd70df50ee failsafe
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

title Apoc XP Pro
root (hd1,0)
chainloader +1



thats what it says

OK, now we need the posting of the hard disks, so we can see what partition equates to hd0,0 inside grub. Also, for the Windows XP we'd need to see it also, as it looks like it's on the second disk and not the first one from this grub config.

And also, please post contents of /etc/fstab also:



and copy and paste here. The fdisk command I gave before will give you the partition listing for us.