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Dual boot with 2 HDD


Latem
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Hello, I have 2 computers. 1 runs windows XP. 1 runs Mandriva LE2005. I mostly use the linux box, and pretty much only use my windows box to play counter strike source and for backup, and some school related things. I am giving away my Linux computer to a relative, except for the HDD. I would like to make my windows computer now have dual boot options with the two hard drives, preferebly without messing with my Windows install and hard drive as much as possible (I have some important stuff on there and it would really suck if i lost it). I have never done any kind of dual boot before. I've searched internet, and so far I think this is what I have to do:

 

In case it's useful to know, this is output from df:

 

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/hda1             5.8G  3.7G  1.8G  68% /

/dev/hda6              31G   30G  1.1G  97% /home

 

My windows disk is an 80 gig harddrive, and just has the 1 partition on it.

 

First, on my linux box:

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/home/me/linux.bin size=512 count=1

 

or

 

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/home/me/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

 

I am not sure if it's suppose to be bs or size? My man page for dd doesn't have size, and just has bs.

 

Then copy the linux.bin file to my Windows drive in C:\linux.bin.

Then edit the C:\boot.ini file to have:

 

c:\linux.bin="Linux"

 

Save the file. Turn off the computer, and add the Linux hard drive as the second hard drive. Put its jumper into the salve option. Turn on the computer and I should have a Linux option to boot. Is this all I have to do? I think the fact that Mandriva is installed on that harddrive as it was the primary drive (hda1) could be a problem. Does this matter? Or will I need to reinstall Mandriva onto the drive when the drive is in fact the second drive (hdb1)?

 

Any advice/suggestions/words of wisdom regarding this? If there is a proper guide on how to do this that I don't know of maybe, that would be helpful.

 

Thanks a lot,

 

Latem

 

[moved from Software by spinynorman]

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Hello Latem.

The easiest thing to do is to shutdown the computer and install the harddrive. Set the links to make it Secondary Master (recommended).

Insert the No.1 Cdrom of your Linux OS in your cdrom drive and power up again.

When the Cdrom is detected and does the normal intro to doing an install, Select upgrade instead because it will almost certainly detect the presence of the Linux OS. This will take you through to the post install where you can set up things in accordance with the new situation.

This way you will not have to be editing files and generally treading on eggshells.

I have always found this to be an easy way. If you want to do it the hard way then it is your choice.

 

Cheers. John.

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