Ok, today I decided to go on with my decision of installing Mandriva one 2008 spring into my Dell inspiron 1501 (XP installed first). The first thing I should say is that I am not an expert in Linux, nor in doing installation of OS. So I am a complete amateur and adventure. Second, English is not my first language so I apologize. Ok, to the topic.

First obstacle I found, how to make the partition of my dell. I have no idea. I understand my dell inspiron has trhee partition. One is the "recovery" partition, the other is XP system and a third one that I have no idea what it is, off course there is another that is the DVD device, i dont know if that counts as a partition. I don't even know if I am right.
So that's the story. I want to keep XP and installing mandriva.

Partitioning an issue 'cause I dont know if madriva partitioning tool will do the partitioning right without lost of my files.
other concerns: Antivirus (I use I avg professional version in my xp, an firework Comodo and antispy ; spybot)

So.. that's the first issue.

I'll working on it but any help or suggestion is welcome!!

Thanks

Violeta

You can use custom partitioning and resize the Windows partition to make space for installing Mandriva. Make sure you boot into Windows first and check the disk for errors, as well as defrag the disk. That will help for when you come to resizing the partition to make space for Mandriva.

Partitioning can sometimes be a problem, and I'd always recommend having a backup of your files. I've never had a problem when partitioning, but then there is always a first time

Thanks Ian!!
ok.. so, I did the defrag in my C:, and I have partition magic ('cause i read was better to do the partiotiing with an external program), so.. How do I procedure with that?. Just run the programm and that's it? I hope so, Ill try.
I did back up of my files.

cheers,

V.

Yes, you can just run Partition Magic, and then resize your Windows partition but leave some space in Windows, so that you can still use it, still save stuff there, etc. How big is your hard disk? How much space is Windows using right now? And how much free space?

Then we can work at how much to allocate for you to use with Linux. In terms of Linux partitions for Mandriva, you really only need three:

swap
/
/home

swap can be 512MB or 1GB you don't need any more than this.
/ can be about 20GB so that you have plenty of space for installing programs, etc.
/home is where your user files will get saved, so however much space you want to allocate from Windows, maybe 40GB if you like but we can help with this later when we know how big the hard disk is.

Hi Ian,

I am writing you from my live CD mandriva. So everything seem to go well, the ethernet thing was recognized, my usb ports work fine, sound devices work, wireless not detected. Now, I don't know how bis is my HD, so I have to check. Mandriva detects 3 storage media, one is 54 G media(30.5GB used, 25.3GB free) , second Dell restore, and a third one Dell utility. Ok. I continue cheking-

OK, keep us informed and let us know how you're getting on

Hi Ian,

it's me again. Now I am in Windows XP.

1. I have defragmented the disk with windows disk defragmenter.
2. I click on Start> My PC > right click on the local disk C > click on Partition Magic 8.0 > click here http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/822/part1yz5.jpg to see the image.
in this part, PM identifies 3 partitions; the green one is the Dell utility (FAT), the Pink one is the NTFS C: which you can see the size, and the yellow one that I have no idea what is that.
3. I clicked on the pink one, and I click on the option "resize/Move partition" under Partition Operation left side of the window. here the image http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/2725/part2vu0.jpg

Here I don't know what to do....

So.. here I listen you guys..

You can resize the 52GB to 40GB, and leave 12GB free to test Mandriva with. Just resize this and let it do it's stuff. The 4GB partition, I've no idea what it is, but chances are it's a restore image for your machine in case you need to recover Windows XP from scratch.

the 4GB IS his restore partition.

for YEARS, dell has made a 10% HD LINUX partition to store their image on.

The they have a CD/DVD/CLI that will allow him to activate it and restore it back to factory fresh.

as long as he doesnt mess with that, he will ALWAYS beable to get back to new.

J

ahh ok, now I have a question:

Whats mean (in the second image) that "this partition crosses the 1024 cylinder boundary and may not be bootable"??

This cylinder boundary was something that used to be a problem years ago. If the bootable partition was beyond this point, you wouldn't be able to start your machine. Nowadays you can safely ignore this, as it's never really a problem now.

Good Mornig Guys,

Well I manage to install Mandriva in my laptop.
But now I have mix feelings. I follow the tutorial that "falko" posted in HowToforge, and I was wondering if the updates I did I really needed them.
Now, I have another problem. Some keys from Keyboard doesn't work. Also my wifi does not work.

ANother thing is that I don't see my XP, when I start the computer it goes directly to Mandriva. I wanted to have the option to choose which OS to boot.
Also, at work I use my laptop and I use to connect it to a big monitor but now it doesnt work that either..

I was wondering if I dont manage to use mandriva, is desinstallation easy too?
NOTE: I am not giving me up yet, but I like to know that if something goes wrong I still have the choice to desinstall...

OK Now I need to know how to come back to XP

Thanks

V.

When you mention what keys don't work, which ones? What keyboard layout are you using? What wireless network card do you have?

For accessing XP, it probably needs a boot entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst. We can edit this and add it easily anyway. First of all, we need to open a console window, so that we can see partition order:



that's a lowercase L. Copy and paste the content here so we can see it. I think it will be /dev/sda2 or something for Windows. Once we have this, I can tell you how to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and add it here.

Okay, I have a Swiss (german) keyboard layout. The keyboard of my dell has a key function "Fn" that allows me to use another keys that has a doppel function the second in blue. for example. the key "Esc" has also stand by option, F1: Hibernate, F2: my wireless switch on off (this does not work), F3: shows battery life, F8: CRT/LCD for changing monitor when I connect a beam or a monitor (this does not work), F10: open the CD thing; 0123456789 in the diferent letters doesnot work ieither. I have a wireless network card Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g , BUS: PCI

this is the log

OK, so what you can do is edit /boot/grub/menu.lst like this:

First, press ALT-F2 together. I'm unsure of if you are using Gnome or KDE, so I will write both.

Gnome:

In the box that popped up type:



enter root password when prompted. Now, at the bottom of the file add:



you can copy and paste that text. Then save the file.

KDE:

Instead of the gksu command use:



the rest is the same.

Check that NUM LOCK isn't enabled. When I installed on my system, NUM LOCK was enabled and causing problems with the buttons not working as they should do.

Ok, I did all that. ( it was a number 1 right?)
And now what??

reboot?

Yes, it was a number one at the end of the chainloader. Yes, when you reboot, you should see an option now to boot Windows.

Ok, I started again,

this is the log