Pepse Posted March 6, 2007 Report Share Posted March 6, 2007 OK, what this amounts to is that I picked up a well equipped tower for a friend. But without any operating system(s). Anyway I mentioned to a tech there that this is going to be a dual boot system. He said to find out which OS to install first. This will be a Windows XP PRO x64 system with Mandriva 2007 Spring? edition (I should have the DVD Wed. or Thurs.). Now, whether it matters or not this computer needs to boot to XP first because my friends girl friend has no clue about Linux, and my friend has little knowledge. If it matters this computer has a SATA hard drive. Later. Pepse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted March 6, 2007 Report Share Posted March 6, 2007 I would install XP first, being sure not to give it the full hard drive. Then, install Linux second. This will keep Windows from being confused by other partitions and will also keep it from overwriting the bootloader that Mandriva will install. Plus, if XP is already installed, it should detect it and add it to your boot menu. Lastly, I would highly suggest just using the normal 32-bit version of XP and not the 64-bit. At this time there is little to no increase in performance for 64-bit as most apps are still 32-bit, not to mention 64-bit XP tends to be a little less stable than it's already oft unstable 32-bit brother. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepse Posted March 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 First to say..... the motherboard is a Gigabyte 64 bit with an AMD 4200+ X2 AM2 chip and 2 GB of RAM and a 250GB SATA hard drive; so that is why I gotta use the XP 64bit OS. This might seem a dumb question, but for partitioning the XP, I install it first and then partition it?? I haven't partitioned a windows hard drive in years; win98 to be right, and just don't remember how I did it. I mean about 2 years later I switched to Linux and haven't had to worry about partitioning. Later. Pepse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted March 7, 2007 Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 You do not have to use a 64-bit operating system on a 64-bit machine. 32 bit XP will run just fine. The only catch is that you will possibly have to load a SATA driver as part of the Windows set up procedure. As for partitioning - I recommend you use a Live CD / USB / floppy distribution of Linux like Mandriva Move or PCLOS to get into the system and set up partitions. Otherwise you can install Windows and tell it to use less of the drive space in its set up script, leaving blank space which you can later partition in the Mandriva setup wizard. What you use for partitioning is not so important - so long as you install Windows first and Mandriva second. If you need help with the actual partitioning plan itself, then feel free to ask or search the board as we have discussed it many times before :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted March 7, 2007 Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 I have tried to use windows 64 bit. Don't. The vendors have not written drivers for their products! I have a customer who wanted the latest and greatest. I built 2 64 bit machines for him (AMD am2's) and they both dual boot. He wanted to use wireless "N". Windows could not work, but of course I got Linux using t just fine. When installing a mixed system, I always use a partitioning tool to setup the drive first. You could use the hard drive vendor's utility for this. Or, if you install Linux first, set up a fat32 partition at the beginning of the drive, and install Linux after that partition. Then, remove the boot loader, and install windows. Windows will see the fat partition and then you can use windows to format ntfs. After it is done, use the recovery to reinstall the bootloader. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted March 7, 2007 Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 Almost all AMD and Intel 64-bit processes can switch to 32-bit mode without any intervention by the user. I have an AMD X2 and running 32bit XP Pro on it, because of the 64bit versions stability and driver issues. As far as partitioning, when you install Windows, there will be a part where you have to create a partition for the drive. It'll walk you through it, just be sure not to make it take up the whole drive. Leave some space for Linux, then when you install it, just tell it to use the free space on the drive and it should take care of it for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindwave Posted March 7, 2007 Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 OK, what this amounts to is that I picked up a well equipped tower for a friend. But without any operating system(s). Anyway I mentioned to a tech there that this is going to be a dual boot system. He said to find out which OS to install first. This will be a Windows XP PRO x64 system with Mandriva 2007 Spring? edition (I should have the DVD Wed. or Thurs.). Now, whether it matters or not this computer needs to boot to XP first because my friends girl friend has no clue about Linux, and my friend has little knowledge. If it matters this computer has a SATA hard drive. Later. Pepse. i JUST went through a similar situation except on an intek Duo Core system. 1) install XP 1st, as others have said use the regular 32 bit xp, you will be MUCH happier in the end, UNLESS you have a 64 bit windows app (like the 64bit version of Autodesk) which was specifically written for it 2) If you are running a clean install windows will partition the drives as it installs, your BEST bet would be to take 1/2 the HD and create the NTFS partition on it, and tell XP to leave the other 1/2 alone, unpartitioned 3) THAT way, when you install MDV you can just tell it to TAKE OVER the entire SECOND 1/2 of the drive, and not have an issue 4) As for the SATA drive, is that the ONLY drive in the system? In mine i had an ATA13 for my XP and a SATA for my MDV, as cheap as HD's are today i figured that would result in the fastest performence. However if you ARE using ONLY the SATA, you might want to try and use an XP install that already has SP2 included. 5) Thats actually ANOTHER point. If your HD is over a certain size (I think its 160gb) and your XP cd does NOT have SP2 installed you will ONLY see a certain portion of the HD anyway. My XP install is an original cd, so i used it to partition my 200GB drive into 2 100's, and work that way. 6) when you get it all said and done PLEASE post some side by side performence comparisons. The AM2 is TRULY what i WANTED but I couldnt get them locally, cheap enough so i went INTEL. I WILL say however that my DC 3.4GHZ MDV 2k7 systems runs rings around my 3GHZAMD64 XP system, But I'd love to see the AM2 numbers. Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepse Posted March 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 (edited) OK, before I go any farther I will acquire a standard XP disc. All I have is the 64bit. I will get back ASAP and we will go from there. Do I need XP PRO or will XP Home work? Pepse. Edited March 7, 2007 by Pepse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted March 7, 2007 Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 I always recommend XP Pro, as XP Home is a butchered version of Pro. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted March 7, 2007 Report Share Posted March 7, 2007 OK, before I go any farther I will acquire a standard XP disc. All I have is the 64bit. I will get back ASAP and we will go from there. Do I need XP PRO or will XP Home work? Pepse. Either will work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 Second that. My cousin has XP Home running fine on a 64 bit system, but XP Pro is by far better. And more stable. I never got Home running stable enough like Pro was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepse Posted March 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2007 (edited) Well, XP is installed and running good. When I set it up I had it partition the hard drive into two 120 GB partitions. After taking care of XP I put the MDV 2007 DVD into the DVD drive and it comes up to the screen for installing and I press enter and I get a blank screen and nothing happens. The DVD drive is idle. I rebooted a couple times and also checked the BIOS and also, I have a copy of KUBUNTU 64 bit and it does nothing after I press install, except you get a screen with the KUBUNTU logo. Actually the last thing I see for MDV2007 is "Installing Linux Kernel". Then it goes blank and the DVD drive stops spinning. What the heck is wrong?? The reason for the edit is because just for the heck of it I took my MDV 2006 PP and put it in and booted the computer and it was willing to install MDV 2006 PP, but when I got to the Agreement part I just refused to get out of it. So, should I install MDV 2006 and then install MDV 2007 as an upgrade? I do know that this 2007 DVD works as I installed it on a smalll hard drive the day I got it from Mandriva. If it helps, the video card is an MSI/ATI 256 MB PCI-Express. Pepse. Edited March 10, 2007 by Pepse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepse Posted March 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2007 I am 99% sure I know what the problem is, the motherboard is not compatible with Linux. I went to the Hardware Database and there are only 4 (or is it 5) Gigabyte motherboards that are compatible, and mine ain't one of them. Unless someone else has a really good idea, let me know. I have installed MDV 2007 on my older Gigabyte MOBO, and a HP computer, and an old E-Machine. Something started to click when I see that Swordfish is having a similar problem with an ASUS mobo. I will drop a note to have him check the hardware compatibility list. Oh, the mobo is a Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4. Just in case someone has one that they have working with MDV. Later. Pepse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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