New installation of sorts

[malikdaud]

Here's the problem. I have a multiboot system with redhat linux 9, Windows 98 and Windows XP installed. Now I want to install a different distribution of linux like perhaps Ubuntu without destroying any data on my hard disk or my Windows installations. How do I do it? I'll be grateful if somebody can help me out.

[fingal]

Hello

This is a fairly generic answer, so I hope other people will add
their comments too. The first stage is to backup your data. No
question about it: you don't want to lose your stuff. Bare in mind,
I don't use Windows so I can only give you a Linux focus.

Decide on how much room to allocate to your distro. If you have
plenty of RAM you might decide to only have a small amout of swap
space. You might decide:

/ - 15 GB
swap - 1 GB or 500 MB ... depends
/home - 20 GB

You'll want to know the names of your existing partitions first,
so make some notes. This will help to stop you over-writing data.
I've used cfdisk to find these, running it as root. Some people
prefer fdisk. Linux partitions have names like hda1, hda5 etc ...

Your distro will have its own gui partitioning tools
(in addition to cfdisk etc). If you just go
with its default options it might decide to over-write your
existing partitions! Choose the advanced option(s) and allocate
your own. Also, decide on which file system you want to use.
You'll need to add the new distro to your bootloader as well.

See ya.

[malikdaud]

Thanks, So all I have to do is to insert the cd of my new distro which will replace my old distro but will my windows installation also remain intact or not because i dont wanna lose all my stuff and settings and everything?

[malikdaud]

Well, I have RedHat 9 installed in one of the partitions. Now I want to get rid of it and reclaim that space for my Windows XP and 98. I also need to get rid of the grub loader of linux and restore to my windows loader. How do I do this?

[malikdaud]

From what I've gathered I need to delete the linux partition using disk management in windows and then "fixmbr" using the windows cd. Which one do i do first? Also I have Win98 installed in C: and winXP in D:. Will this restore the windows bootloader?

[AlexK]

using fixmbr from XP cd will restore the basic WinXP bootloader, I doubt wether it will include Win 98 as well. So, from XP you'll have to re-add Win98 to the bootloader once you have used fixmbr. Once that is done, you can reclaim the lost space for windows.

If you are going to install Ubuntu or any other distro, there is no need to reclaim space for Windows before you install the new distro there. In the vast majority of cases, the new distro will see the empty space and install there.

[malikdaud]

Ok, thanks. First I use fixmbr and then reclaim lost space. But how do I "re-add win 98 to the bootloader"?

[AlexK]

But how do I "re-add win 98 to the bootloader"?

From windows command shell (Start -> Run -> type cmd) run bootcfg.exe edit as needed.