Dual-boot with Windows..help Can't screw this uP!

Ok, I'm gonna install SimplyMepis 04 on my machine with Windows XP Pro also. Now I have 2 Hdds in taht computer. the 40 gig which is the IDE channel 1 master, and has the windows boot on it. the other one is an 80 gig slave (ide channel 1) that i use to install my games on. Now i want Simply mepis 04 on there too, and ask me which os i want to boot to every time i start it up. should i install mepis on the 40 gig with the windows sys files? or should i install it on the 80 and partition part of the 80 gig (like 20 gig) for just linux? will that work, and will linux and windows be able to share files?? thanks so much!

Wow I cannot believe I'm answering a question related to linux, I know nothing. Luckily for you this is a fairly simple question.

I would partition a section of your 80 GB slave (20 GB probably isn't neccessary for just Mepis). Windows does not have a particularly good partition program so I would use the Mepis live cd and use the program on that.

When you install mepis it should ask you if you want to install the grub bootloader, check the box, and select your 40 GB HD (hda probably). This will make it so whenever your computer boots a menu will come up asking whether you want to use simply mepis or windows.

And Linux can read most windows files fine but windows has some problems reading linux partitions (at least this happens for me).

I hope this answers your question.

yes it did thank you, but i thought about switching to Mandrake 10.0 instead since there's hardly ANY support for mepis out there. will i have any trouble since it's a different distro?

I don't know much about mandrake, but I know that the Grubb Bootloader from the mepis install will not be automatically configured for it. Mandrake should have it's own bootloader (I wouldn't know but am assuming), or also you can use the Grunn Bootload, by hitting c for the console then using these commands:

grubb>root (hd2,1)

grubb>kernel /boot/(at this point hit tab for a list of files, I do not know the filename for the kernal for mandrake, so I can't give you specifics) root=/dev/hdb1)

grubb>boot

Hopefully a more experianced linux user can give you better intructions there but that gives you the general idea.

Also if you did something like make two linux partitions on that second hard drive and installed mandrake on one, then mepis on the other, Grubb would automatically have mandrake, windows, and mepis there.


But none of this should be a problem because I am sure that Mandrake comes with a bootloader.