Dual boot win9x and Redhat
I made this short and sweet. If you have anything to add to it or find any errors let me know.
this is for RedHat 7.2 but should work for 7.x
Before you do anything.. Check the Hardware compatibility list HERE
1) Make a decision on wheter you want to start from scratch or save your win OS's patition.
If you want to save your partition see part II below.
I. From scratch.
-----------BACK UP EVERYTHING THAT YOU WILL WANT TO SAVE ON CD-----------------
A. Begin by gathering all your disc's OS installs and programs you will need. You will need a Windows boot disk (unless your bios in configured to boot from cd), windows installation disk's, and the Redhat ISO's that are burned to cd.
B. Reformat your HardDrive using a reformat utility. I would suggest using Patition Magic or any other flavor you like. You can use fdisk to do it also, although I'm not sure if you will be able to partition the second half in ETX2 or EXT3 format (which are linux formats). Any one else know if it does?
You will want to prolly want to split your drive in half and give each OS its own half. For the space requirement I would suggest having at least a 20 gig drive to do this. I have a 40 gig and gave win 20 gigs and linux 20 gigs.
Make sure that the win partition is either FAT32 (win 9x, Me) or NTFS (win2k)
win XP i think can be either. Correct me if I'm wrong. And also make sure the win partition is the first partition. Win OS's don't like to be second in line.
After you have made the two partitions you can begin your win install. Just install it like you would normally. get everything in your win sys set up and then your ready to begin your next install.
Once win is done, get your redhat cd's (2 w/ redhat 7.2) and make a bootdisk from cd 1.
Insert a blank 3.5" 1.44meg into floopy drive goto DOS and type the following:
Quote:
Taken directly from here.
C:\> d:
D:\> cd \dosutils
D:\dosutils> rawrite
Enter disk image source file name: ..\images\boot.img
Enter target diskette drive: a:
Please insert a formatted diskette into drive A: and
press --ENTER-- : [Enter]
D:\dosutils>
This will create a linux boot disk for the installation. (NOTE: this will NOT be the disk you use to boot into linux with once installation is complete. This is ONLY for the installation process)
Now your ready to install RedHat 7.2.
Reboot your computer with the linux installation disk in the drive and wait for it to load.
Once you see the GUI for RedHat you will begin the installation as normal. Choose all youe settings.
You will need to determine what class of install is best for you. If your just using the linux to learn the operating system I would suggest choosing Workstation. For definitions of each install type see THIS
Once you have choosen the install type you will next have to choose the formating and partition options. You will have three choices of how to do this. I would suggest you choose the: Manually Partition with Disk Druid.
The next screen will show you the partitions on your drive. It will look like
-/dev/hda
|-hda1 blah blah blah fat32, or NTFS
|-hda2 blah blah blah EXT2, or EXT3
You will want to choose the EXT2, or EXT3 partition to use. Follow the few steps to use that partition.
I think the next option is to choose which type of loading you want. I will be given a choice of either using GRUB, or LILO. Both are equally good in my eyes (although everyone has a different opinion here). I used GRUB and it seems to work fine for me. It will then ask you to create the boot loader that will actually load your linux OS when you want to use it. Insert another blank disk and sit and wait for it to complete.
It will then ask the basic Timezone, network configuration, language settings, etc.
The next important step is to create the root login and password. This step is very important. The root account is what you will use to do any changes to your linux system. Choose a good password.
Next is Package selection, I would just install them all so you have everything.
Well thats about it. Let the installation take place and you'll be all set. When you want to use the linux OS, just pop in the boot disk and it will load Linux.
NOTE: The initial login screen will use "root"as login.
II. saving your win os partition.
To save your win OS you will need to use a partitioning program like Partition Magic.
First run a scandisk, surface scan and defrag on your c:\ drive. This is very important. You need to make sure all your data is at the beginning of the drive, and any bad sectors of the Drive are marked as so. Note how much space win has used and write that number down.
Next boot your computer into the Partition Magic program. In the program choose to redo an exisisting partition. Resize the partition and make sure you leave enough room on your win partition for exsisting and future files. Make the rest of the drive a EXT2 partition.
Then just go thru the above installation procedure for the Redhat System. You should be all set.
Hope this helps.
If anyone sees any problems in this PLEASE let me know so I can change it. I'm doing this all from memory.
