elder70 Posted November 13, 2007 Report Share Posted November 13, 2007 A few days ago I dowloaded Mandriva 2007. I have a machine running Windows XP and I want it to dual boot with Mandriva. In past installations the user was asked by the linux system, at installation, if they wanted to run a dual boot system (on the same hard drive). Does this Mandriva offer that altenative? Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted November 13, 2007 Report Share Posted November 13, 2007 If you've got Windows on the machine, and there is spare space on the hard disk for installing Linux, then yes, the new version will allow you to dual boot. Just make sure you don't overwrite the whole disk when partitioning for Mandriva. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkscot Posted November 13, 2007 Report Share Posted November 13, 2007 A few days ago I dowloaded Mandriva 2007. Do you mean 2008? If not, why are you going for 2007 and not the latest version? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elder70 Posted November 14, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2007 If you've got Windows on the machine, and there is spare space on the hard disk for installing Linux, then yes, the new version will allow you to dual boot. Just make sure you don't overwrite the whole disk when partitioning for Mandriva. Thank you, I was hoping that was the situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elder70 Posted November 14, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2007 Do you mean 2008? If not, why are you going for 2007 and not the latest version? It was late at night and I was rushing. :( So now I will download 2008, not that I know I can choose dual booting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted November 14, 2007 Report Share Posted November 14, 2007 As far as I know, just about EVERY Linux OS offers the choice of dual booting and has done so for years and years. Linux doesn't pretend to own your computer as Windows tries to do. Microsoft is the only one that does not encourage dual booting even of different Windows versions but lets you do it with difficulty and without offering help. Cheers. John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted November 14, 2007 Report Share Posted November 14, 2007 If you do dual-boot, make sure Windows is on the machine first. Most people recommend that Windows is in the first primary partition on the disk so /dev/hda1 or /dev/sda1, but really this doesn't have to be the case. You can install Linux first, and then Windows later, but you'll have to use a rescue disk to get your boot loader back in place again. Again, it's possible this way but more hassle - which is why we recommend you put Windows on the machine first. Make sure you leave disk space for Linux, otherwise use a partitioning tool to make space of it. Mandriva has a nice gui tool which will allow you to resize the Windows partition to make space for Linux anyway, so no need for Partition Magic or anything else. It's best to defrag the Windows partition before you attempt to resize. My partitioning: esprit ian # fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 250 2008093+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda2 * 251 5231 40009882+ 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda3 5232 7722 20008957+ 83 Linux /dev/sda4 7723 19457 94261387+ 83 Linux As you can see, Linux Swap is the first partition on my hard disk - and not the Windows partition. So you can do it this way if you want. I put swap first, because the disk is faster at the beginning, so if your swap will be used at some point, it's better to be here to make sure your machine is nice and fast. However, for now, for you, I suggest you put Windows on the first partition, and then make your second partition swap, and go from there. You'll need three partitions minimum for Linux: swap / /home and if you have 1GB ram or higher, swap only needs to be 512MB. Usual rule is/was 2 x ram, so if 1GB, then 2GB swap, but really you don't need to. I have 2GB swap allocated, just because I fancied it :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
null Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 (edited) I was kind of surprised that during the install, the default (ie: pre-selected) answer to What Do You Want To Do With Windows?, was "wipe it out". Since windows was on the entire disk, I selected Resize Windows. If you do that, then the next time you boot into windows, after installing mandriva, it will go thru a Chkdsk utility automatically, but then it will reboot normally into windows after that. Edited November 19, 2007 by null Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 Resizing the windows partition during installation is a dangerous operation. For example, if you have enabled at your windows partition compression and/or NTFS encryption and resize, then you are well assured of losing ALL your compressed and encrypted data. Before resizing it is always advisable to boot into windows, disable compression and encryption, and perform a full defragmentation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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