Results 1 to 8 of 8
I currently am running windows XP home edition on my pc. I want to set it up so that it Dual-boots with Mandriva linux. I don't know anything about how ...
Enjoy an ad free experience by logging in. Not a member yet? Register.
- 10-10-2005 #1Just Joined!
- Join Date
- Oct 2005
- Posts
- 1
Help needed setting up Mandriva linux to dual boot with Windows
I currently am running windows XP home edition on my pc. I want to set it up so that it Dual-boots with Mandriva linux. I don't know anything about how to do this. Can someone help me?
- 10-10-2005 #2Linux Engineer
- Join Date
- Nov 2004
- Location
- Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Posts
- 1,205
The first thing is to partition your harddrive. There are two ways I'd recommend: the first is to get a live distro such as Knoppix and use the qtparted program. The second is to use a windows program such as Partition Magic. Basically, decide how much space you would like to use for linux and make your windows partition that much smaller. Before partitioning, always backup your files (the importaint ones, anyway) and defragment the drive. For linux, I'd say 10 Gb is a good amount, though I've used as low as 3 Gb. Don't format it, just leave it as empty space.
Basically, you now install Mandriva. I've not done it myself, but as far as I know it is not very hard. It should setup it's partitions for you (it will need a swap partition and a "/" or "root" partition). Also, it should install a boot loader which will give you the choice to boot windows or mandriva.
Hope this all helps.Stumbling around the 'net:
www.cloudyuseful.com
- 10-11-2005 #3Just Joined!
- Join Date
- Sep 2005
- Location
- Estonia
- Posts
- 62
Hi, and if I need to install Windows to dual boot with (already installed) Mandriva is this method good for me too ?
- 10-11-2005 #4Linux Engineer
- Join Date
- Nov 2004
- Location
- Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Posts
- 1,205
I don't think so. I've had windows overwrite linux, and even if you did get it installed on a separate partition (and it left linux alone), it would still rewrite the MBR (master boot record), which would mean that you could not boot into linux. You would have to use something like a liveCD to reinstall Grub.
Originally Posted by david_b. Stumbling around the 'net:
www.cloudyuseful.com
- 10-12-2005 #5Just Joined!
- Join Date
- Sep 2005
- Location
- Estonia
- Posts
- 62
And if I have my boot information writen in the root directory ?
- 10-12-2005 #6Linux Newbie
- Join Date
- Oct 2005
- Location
- Lakewood, WA
- Posts
- 112
Two HDDs
In my desktop I dual boot XP and Linux. I just put two hard drives in there and devoted an entire hard drive to Linux, makes it easier than trying to repartition a hard drive that already has data on it. Just make sure that Linux is in the master position so that its bootloader will come up because for some reason Linux will pick up Windows but Windows will not pick up Linux.
- 10-12-2005 #7Just Joined!
- Join Date
- Oct 2005
- Location
- Ontario
- Posts
- 2
I just did the same thing. In XP I used Partition Magic to make a Linux partition then installed Mandriva to that partition. Works just as well as dual boot with 2 diffrent versions of Windows.
- 10-13-2005 #8Linux Newbie
- Join Date
- Dec 2004
- Location
- Texas, USA
- Posts
- 107
dual boot
Mandrake and Mandriva will also take care of resizing and partitioning an NTFS HD
Posting Permissions
- You may not post new threads
- You may not post replies
- You may not post attachments
- You may not edit your posts
