ML 10 and W2000 dual boot

[Trio3b]

Newbie would like to migrate to ML 10 on PC with 800 mhz CPU, 128mb RAM, 20gb HD, and W2000 (NTFS) installed (hardware checks out as compatible). Read Static's FAQ and got impression that W2k should be reinstalled first, with 3 partitions (what sizes?) and a swap space, and then ML 10 after, or is the ML 10 disk partition utility able to do this on the HD with W2000 already installed? Also there is reference to installing on 2 different HD's. I suppose I would install HD for W2k on Pri IDE master and HD for ML 10 on Pri IDE slave. Have read some about moving boot.ini or boot loader into MBR on first 8gb of HD, etc. Sounds complicated and am not sure I even know what the Master Boot Record is, where it is, and what to do with it in context of my question, much less where or HOW to access or manipulate it. Or will ML10 take care of that for me?

Thanks for any help.

[AussieJohn]

You are correct. You must install Windows first. Make sure that you set the BIOS to disable Plug&Play before doing any Linux install

 

Next make sure that you thoroughly defragment Windows before you attempt to repartition the Hard Drive. If windows is to be a clean install then select fat32 as the file form rather than ntfs. A Linux OS can read and write easily to fat32 but has problems writing to ntfs.

 

If possible export your important files vis burning them to CD-R/W discs. Mandrake10 OE is reasonably fool proof so don't be intimidated. Just start with the first disk and follow the prompts. There are many of us here who will try to help you out.

One NOTE. We have all been down this path before.

 

Welcome to our Linux Mandrake World and to MUB in particular.

 

Cheers. John.

 

I would recommend that if possible you move your primary slave HDD to the secondary master position and install your mandrake on that one. This will help to avoid repartitioning involving Windows. Your really are advised to not have both hard drives on the same cable.

 

John.

Edited November 10, 2004 by AussieJohn

[scoopy]

Welcome to MUB Trio3b,

 

To elaborate... windows does not have to be "reinstalled"... just as long as it is installed before linux.

 

The easiest way is to add that second harddrive and install linux there. I have a similiar setup, Win2k (NTFS) on pri master, and Mandrake 10 (ReiserFS) on pri slave. I have other FAT32 partitions that I use to share files between windows and linux (this could be that 3rd partition you read about)

 

And if your install goes as smoothly as it should (barring hardware problems or bad install discs) you should reboot to a screen (LILO) that will ask you whether you want to start windows or linux. Not too many users need to be fiddling with their windows boot files... the normal problem is the XFree config file that needs to be tweaked to boot into a GUI.

 

good luck,