Mandrake and XP dual boot- HOW TO?

[Wide Angle]

Hi Guys,

I recently bought one hard disk 40GB to install Mandrake and XP or W2K pro

what first should I do?

Should I create partition C: and D: using Win98 bootable disk and format C: (NTFS)
then install XP or Mandrake first?

Could someone help me the good steps to do so.

Thanks a lot for your valuable input

Regards, henry

[bushmaster]

Use the XP install disk to format the 1st partition and leave the 2nd partition un-formatted and install XP to the 1st partition.
Then boot with the MDK install disk and have it install to the 2nd un-formatted partition and use LILO as the boot manager.

[Wide Angle]

thanks a lot.

[NJEnviroguy]

You may not see XPpro listed as itself on LILO when you boot. It might be listed as Win2000, however, that's what you'll want to select when you want to boot up into XP.

[bushmaster]

Actually it shows up as NT

[mireland]

Originally posted by bushmaster
Actually it shows up as NT

I think you can change it to whatever you want..:cool:

[DVOM]

I'd include a third partition (FAT32) to share files both ways between linux and XP.

Both OS's will be able to read/write to it.

[NJEnviroguy]

Originally posted by bushmaster
Actually it shows up as NT

My bad, ur right.

[Greg Harper]

Didn't know you could read -write ntfs files to a fat 32 partition.
Am I wrong? Otherwise a really good suggestion. Wish I had done that with my dual boot w2k-mandrake combo to start with.

[DVOM]

Greg Harper, it's the OS's doing the read/write not the file format of the partitions.

A .jpg or a .txt or anything else is still a .jpg or .txt file whether it's on a NTFS or FAT32 partition. The distinction is what OS are you using. Win98 can't deal with (or even see) a NTFS partition. W2K or XP can see and read/write to both.

AFAIK, a linux OS can be made to read files on a NTFS partition but can't write to it. Linux has no problem with read/write to a FAT32 partition.

So when you see someone say: "NTFS can see FAT32 but FAT32 can't see NTFS", that's totally a misunderstanding of what's going on. Neither can "see" anything. Only OS's can "see" one or the other or both file systems.

[rick42]

Don't fool around with LILO and GRUB.
I used to use it untill I found freeware XOSL. (http://www.xosl.org or http://xosl.sourceforge.net/)
I have been using XOSL for a few years now. It also allows for multi-booting.
It saved my a** last year when my primary Win98 partition got corrupted and I then selected to boot from another Windows primary partition. :p

[rraehal]

I use Windows XP and Linux (Mandrake 9).

Linux came with software that will read my XP version of NTFS. It will read AND write Windows NT4 and Windows 2000 successfully. I know it can be dangerous, but I have never had any problems.

I am sure if you search the internet, you can find an updated driver for Linux that can read and write XP's version of NTFS.

Here is a link to a working rw version driver for Linux (too bad it costs money):
http://www.ntfs-linux.com/