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Author Topic: Dual Boot System.  (Read 4029 times)

tickmike

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Dual Boot System.
« on: January 22, 2008, 09:57:58 PM »

I want to make a Dual boot system, I have a 'Test' machine with XP Pro on it (nothing important, just for testing).

I used 'Partition Magic' to resize the HDD to give me 13.8 Gb of spare space.

HDD is set-up as C,D = NTFS for XP and L is for the Linux OS.

If I want to install to L how do I go about it ?.
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I have a set of 6 fixed IP's From  Eclipse  isp.BT ADSL2(G992.3) line>HG612 as a Modem, Bridge, WAN Not Bound to LAN1 or 2 + Also have FTTP (G.984) No One isp Fixed IP >Dual WAN pfSense (Hardware Firewall and routing).> Two WAN's, Ethernet LAN, DMZ LAN, Zyxel GS1100-24 Switch.

roseway

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Re: Dual Boot System.
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2008, 10:44:01 PM »

You need two partitions for Linux - one for the OS and one for swap. The distro will have a partitioning utility which is called by the installer, and it's generally better to use this rather than Partition Magic (I understand that PM can produce non-standard partition tables in some circumstances). So run the Linux installer and use its partitioner to delete the third partition which you call 'L', and then create a partition of 0.5-1.0 GB for swap and a second partition using the rest of the space for the OS. For the OS partition you can format it using either ext3 or reiserfs, and you might as well accept the installer's default here.

As an alternative you could use Partition Magic to delete partition 'L', and then tell the Linux installer to use all the free space; it will then create the swap and OS partitions for you.

That's it really. Install Linux in the usual way, and the installer will take care of creating the dual-boot menu so you can select Windows or Linux when you boot.
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  Eric

tickmike

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Re: Dual Boot System.
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2008, 11:23:09 PM »

Thanks Eric, I have gone for your second option and deleted that 'L' partition.
I playing with Damn Small Linux   http://damnsmalllinux.org/download.html
Using 'cfdisk' I can see my NTFS partitions are called hda1 and hda5  then the remainder is unmarked of 13857.18MB

Now if I use the installer it asks me to name the partition I want to create, as long as I do not use hda1 or hda5, I should be ok or not ?.

It not the end of the world if I delete the XP OS, But how do I make sure I do not ?.
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I have a set of 6 fixed IP's From  Eclipse  isp.BT ADSL2(G992.3) line>HG612 as a Modem, Bridge, WAN Not Bound to LAN1 or 2 + Also have FTTP (G.984) No One isp Fixed IP >Dual WAN pfSense (Hardware Firewall and routing).> Two WAN's, Ethernet LAN, DMZ LAN, Zyxel GS1100-24 Switch.

roseway

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Re: Dual Boot System.
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2008, 07:28:45 AM »

I've never tried DSL, but it seems to have a rather minimalist installer. It doesn't look as though it offers the automatic option, so you'll need to create the two partitions manually. One will be for swap, and won't have any associated mount point, and the other will be for the OS and will have the mount point '/'.

The references hda1, hda5, etc. are assigned by the system, not by you. Primary partitions on the first IDE hard disk are named hda1-4, and higher numbers are for logical partitions. So what you have at present is one primary partition hda1 (Windows drive C) with the rest of the disk assigned to an extended partition; in that extended partition there is one logical partition hda5 (Windows drive D), and the rest of the extended space is free. So your two linux partitions will be hda6 and hda7.
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  Eric

tickmike

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Re: Dual Boot System.
« Reply #4 on: January 23, 2008, 10:22:51 PM »

It did have an installer and I followed all the instructions,  It  install ok only to find it had over wrote my hda5 'D' drive for xp, so I lost all my program files. >:D  As it's only a test machine I decided to format the hard drive and start again.
DSL (Damn Small Linux) works well as a live CD, It loads fast as it is only 50MB ( so you can run from a 'floppy' or 'USB Drive').
Compaired to Ubuntu or PCLinux it is a bit basic.
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I have a set of 6 fixed IP's From  Eclipse  isp.BT ADSL2(G992.3) line>HG612 as a Modem, Bridge, WAN Not Bound to LAN1 or 2 + Also have FTTP (G.984) No One isp Fixed IP >Dual WAN pfSense (Hardware Firewall and routing).> Two WAN's, Ethernet LAN, DMZ LAN, Zyxel GS1100-24 Switch.