Dual Booting The System

Greeting's People. I'm currently in the process of deleting unwanted/needed file's and space on my current hard drive on box 1 (my main one, the one with Win98se). Now, I'm eventually planning on partitioning it to dual boot with Win98 and a linux distribution. Now I'm going to download the iso file's then burn them to CD and I'll have all that covered (probably all from linuxiso.org).

Now I'm not entirely sure how to go about the whole dual-booting process and how to make it work. I'm fairly new to the topic and I would like to know how to go about it once I have a linux installation CD ready. If anyone can perhap's give me a little step by step on partitioning the system to dual boot Win98 and say RedHat 9.0 then that would be great. Any help is greatly appreciated and I'd like to turn this into a discussion that could help future people that are new to Partitioning as well.

Oh and so we're clear, I did search AO a little bit and found very little. I didn't understand too much either.

ok you obviously have windows already installed so get soemthing like partition magic that allows you to repartion your hdd without formatting .... decrease the windows partition to whatever size you want ... (make sure you windows partion stays as the first partition on the hdd) then create another partition of whatever size you want to install linux on and format it as a linux filesystem (linux setup will prolly do that for you) and finally create a third partition on your hdd (about 150 meg) as a linux swap partition

so on your hdd you will have :

first partition: windows with win98 installed
Second partition: where you will install linux (formatted to a linux filesystem)
third partition: linux swap partition

when you go to install linux it will ask you where you want to install it ... (point it to the second partition(your linux one)) and it will also ask you for a swap partition (point it to the swap partition you created)

setup should configure lilo automatically and then when you reboot after its all complete lilo should come up and give you the option to boot windows or linux ... if it doesnt you can always boot linux with a boot disk and then get a tutorial on how to setup lilo to boot either windows or linux (the lilo config file (which you would need to edit if it doesnt do it in setup automatically is lilo.conf)

hope this helps

if its confusing just ask for help :)

The size of your swap partition depends on the size of your linux partition :) i normally make it 100 meg

Okay so to break it down: I get partition magic (wherever the bloody hell I get that) and I run that and set my partition size's. Create a partition for linux (whatever file size, probably somewhere close to half) and create another partition for the linux swap partition. From there, pop the Linux Installation CD in and follow the regular process. When it ask's where to install it, direct to second partition on my hard drive. When asked for swap partition, point to third. The setup should auto configure lilo which would ask me on bootup (or when I reboot) what to load (Win or Linux).

Do I have it or is there something I'm not understanding? And is there any reference site's you might have that could also help in the event I need it? Thanks again for the information.

thats right .. if lilo for some reason doesnt configure properly (install lilo to your master boot record) then you can boot into linux with a linux boot disk (you will have the option to create this during the setup) and once you are in linux ... configure lilo (the config file for lilo is lilo.conf) so configure the lilo.conf and set it to point to the windows partion for windows and the linux one for linux ....


http://www.enterprisedt.com/publications/dual_boot.html

http://www.computing.net/howto/advanced/linuxnt/

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwork...y/l-dboot.html

these links might help .. for more if you go to google and search for something like

"howto dual boot with linux" it comes up with heaps of stuff you could try
"linux win98 dual boot" or anything really and it brings up heaps

hope this helps :)

[if you do have to configure lilo.conf once you save it .. run /sbin/lilo as root to allow the changes in lilo.conf to take effect]

I wont be around at all tonight but im sure there are heaps of others who can help you :) gore is good at installing OS's :)

I'm not worried about lilo (or configuring it for that matter). My last question is where do I get this partition magic?

im not sure if you can get a trial version of it or not .... you dont necessarily need partition magic just a program that allows you to partition your hdd without having to format it ... so that way you can keep windows ... try www.download.com or www.powerquest.com

Rat's.. no luck with either one. Unfourtunately I have to pay for it :(

you might not .. just wait around a bit someone else might be able to help you with partition software :) give it 24 hours or so .. or if you are not worried about keeping your win98 then you could format the whole thing then partition it using fdisk during the linux setup ... :) you would lose everything tho and have to install windows again too .. which isn't fun :)

Yeah, I don't plan on formatting a cot damned thing so that's out of the question. I'll just wait around for a little bit more help or a link to a download or whatever. But thanks, you've helped alot. :)

www.newegg.com You could just buy a second hard drive. That would give you more space and a completely unpartioned drive for linux. They are fairly cheap @the egg the days. That's where I bought my seagate 120GB.

Yeah, but wouldn't installing a second hard drive with another OS be more difficult and strenuous? I think I'm going to stick to partitioning the box I have for now, but thanks for the advice. So does anyone know where I can download a good partition magic-type application?

I'm going to go with grunt... I really would recommend you get a second HD spyder - doesn't need to be huge at this stage. It isn't more strenuous installing linux on the second HD you just have to be careful and make sure which drive you're putting the linux partitions on (should be on /dev/hdb rather than /dev/hda). install lilo (or whatever you use) to the boot sector on hda i.e. your first drive... or alternatively install it to floppy disc (that way if you do ***** the boot manager up, its a bit its easier to get back into windows to get on the net find out what you did wrong and correct it)

Z

edit

this may help
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...-dualboot.html

Alot of time you can call a local mom and pop computer shop and get a 10gig hd from them for really cheap. Also try calling a local university and ask the CS department if they have some for donation.

Also on a older machine you would want your swap as the first partition allowing for faster access increasing the speed of it.

Dual booting with a fat32 partition allows for rw access from linux as well.

Another though is that if you alot the space (resizing it) and leave in un-partitioned I belive the newest Debian will detect windows, use the remaining space without touching the fat32 partition and even enter a entry into fstab so that it is auto-mounted each time.

Socialist, many distros now do that. Redhat did it as early as 7. Spyder, I'd recommend that you simply install over an existing partition. Delete/move all files on it to another partition, delete it using diskdrake/diskdruid/fdisk/whatever, make two partitions (linux and swap) in its place and install linux. Heck, it doesn't even matter if it's a logical partition and not a primary partition. Linux isn't too fussy about that kinda stuff.

Cheers,
cgkanchi

Well, keep in mind, there is ALWAYS a risk, of the HD getting formatted, but when i was installing mandrake on my windows box, i did not load any programs, same with fedora, and debian, they come with a program called "qtparted", which i find being the best, i hope this helps

Hrmm, well if there's a risk that the HD can be formatted then I'll just make a backup of my stuff that's not an issue. I'm not going to buy a second HD, I'm just going to partition the one I have and follow fyrewall's info. That doesn't seem that hard. Anyway's, I gotta download the iso's first and that usually take's awhile.