Re: Setting up PC for dual-boot Linux and Windows XP

From: Michael C. (mcsuper5_at_usol.com)
Date: 08/30/03 

Date: 30 Aug 2003 07:19:50 GMT

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 14:53:27 -0500, John Seeliger <jseelige@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I just built a PC and have a copy of Red Hat Linux Deluxe Workstation 7.1.
> I am planning at some point in the future to put XP on it. How should I
> partition it to do it properly, so it won't have to be redone later?
>
[snip]
> Norcent 16x DVD
> Pine CD-RW
> Maxtor 40 GB 7200 rpm
>

XP needs at least some real estate at the beginning of the drive. I'm
used to W2k which requires 2G for the install, but it doesn't have to
install at the beginning of the drive (it does need to install it's
boot-loader at the beginning though.)

It may cause less trouble if you may repartition later to install XP in
the first primary partition, 3 to 6 Gig depending on how much software
you plan on installing, and FAT32/NTFS whichever is your preference.

Create an extended partition that uses the rest of your disk.

You may want a separate partition for your XP swap, if so make it next.
If you do set up a partition for swap leave it, as Windows tends to get
cranky about a missing swap file.

If you're going to be burning CDs, you'll probably want at least 2
partitions of at least 750M or so, and should probably make them fat32
so you can use XP and/or Linux to build/burn your CDs.

You may want to create a partition just for sharing data between XP and
Linux. It should be fat32 if you do.

You'll also need an ext2/ext3 partition for your root (I don't know if
RH 7.1 supports ext3, if it doesn't then I'd upgrade.)

A swap partition.

A home partition (optional but highly recommended ext2/ext3/reiserfs)

All partitions after XP's (optional?) swap partition can be any order.
My preference is to put the system partitions first, then data
partitions. If you have XP I'd recommend installing it first, creating
it's partitions using it's own tools, and remember to feed it
appropriate sizes. Create all NTFS/FAT32 partitions at this time, and
do NOT create partitions that will be changed to Linux at this time just
leave unpartitioned space.

While they do have tools that may/may not work to change partition
sizes, the correct way is to plan ahead.

Remember to keep a Linux boot disk in case XP overwrites the MBR.

GL & HTH,
 
Michael C. 

-- 
mcsuper5@usol.com http://mcsuper5.freeshell.org/
Registered Linux User #303915 http://counter.li.org/

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