installing winxp with gnome

[S_T_S_OM]

i have ubuntu installed (forgive me if im gonna sound noobish, that is because i am) with gnome. now i want to install WINXP along with it only i dont know how and i dont want to clear my hard drive. how do i do that?

thanks...

[oz]

My personal opinion is that it would be easier to start fresh, install WinXP, then install Linux.

That's not to say that WinXP can't be installed after Linux. It's just harder to get it all working that way.

[S_T_S_OM]

ok... but how do i save all of my data? i have over 90 GB of data on my drive and burning it all up is not an option sadly...

got any ideas?

[oz]

If you have a spare partition on the drive, you can move it there. Just make sure you don't allow the Windows or Linux installers to touch that partition. Otherwise, you could transfer it to another drive if that option is available to you.

When you are done, move or copy it to the partition/drive where you need it.

[S_T_S_OM]

is there a way to make a new partition now...?

[oz]

You could use the PartedMagic LiveCD if you want.

That's what I use for my own partitioning needs. It's a small download and quick burn to CD, and there are good instructions for using it on their website.

[Jonathan183]

If you have the Ubuntu live CD then it has gparted and you can use that to resize/move/create/delete partitions. If you open a terminal and type

sudo fdisk -l

and post the output we can see the partition structure and make suggestions on what to do ... also post the output of

cat /etc/fstab

as well.

Ed: PartedMagic is still a good CD to have ... it has testdisk to start with which can come in handy

While you are burning CDs make yourself a copy of SuperGrub as well ... this may be needed to replace Windows bootloader code in the MBR before the Windows install & will help you fix boot issues.

You can also find step by step guides such as this one

[S_T_S_OM]

thank u guys both. i think ill go with jonathan's way. though i didnt get along with PartedMagic cause i think i DLed the wrong version as it has an EXE file on it...
but im using the step by step manual. if ill need any further help, i know where to go

[Jonathan183]

Good luck ... two things to keep in mind :-

1. power loss during partition manipluation tends to be fatal for data on the partition ... so if you can backup the vital stuff before you start (I mean your docs, family photos etc - not system config data).

2. Windows is usually on the first partition of the first hard drive in the system and sometimes refuses to boot unless it is put in that location.

[S_T_S_OM]

umm... i did everything the guide says up to the part of installing XP. it wont boot!! and i changed the boot order to start from the CD/DVD drive.
and i checked, the cd does have winxp on it. its not corrupted
is there something i need to press in order to make it boot from the cd?