about to install mandriva 2007 over windows xp

[sim]

Hi

I have just been lurking and seen some scary complicated suggestions for installing linux over XP with two hard drives in place. I have two disks connected, one with XP on it (in NTFS) the other just used for data storage in FAT32 (drive E in XP). I was planning on just backing up a little and then installing linux in the easy way following the NOOB style easy compress stuff instructions to set up a dual boot, hopefully leaving the NTFS disk mostly alone (apart from re-writing the MBR to point to the LILO) and installing linux on the FAT32 disk.

Does this seem unreasonable to anyone? Should I be trying to leave the XP disk completely alone (i.e. not even changing the MBR) and messing with the BIOS to get it to boot up from the second disk or something? If so some really easy to follow instructions on what to do would be appreciated as I am not an expert!

Thanks for any comments from anyone.

Cheers
Sim

[devils casper]

Hi !

my suggestion is... dont mess up with MBR of XP disk...
un-plug XP disk, connect second disk as Primary and install Linux in it. after installation, connect XP disk as secondry and add an entry for windows in LILO or GRUB ( i prefer GRUB coz its very easy to handle it )

in this method, XP disk's MBR is intact and you will have dual boot system.....



casper

[sim]

Hi

Thanks for the suggestion. I think that should be easy enough to do.

Will XP really work though if it's installed on what will then be the secondary disk? Won't it get confused about what's the "C" drive and whats the "E" drive and struggle to find things that it thinks is on the C drive but has now moved to the E drive, or will it still think that it is located on the C Drive eventhough it's now plugged in as the secondary drive?

Cheers
Sim

[devils casper]

Drive Letters will remain same...
right now E: drive is second disk. right? after installing Linux, Windows wont show E: drive coz windows doesnt recognize Linux. you can read/write in Windows from Linux but by default Windows can't recognize Linux Partitions. it will Show it as unknown partition.

as i wrote earlier, nothing will change in Windows Disk except E: will not be there anymore.



casper

[sim]

OK, I'll give it a go. Though I was planning on just shrinking the partition on the current E drive (I think the drive is about 80Gig, I was planning on leaving 40 as a data store place where both Windows and Linux can read and write stuff to and using 40 GB for the new Linux partition. D'you think in that case XP will see the old E drive as before except shrunk in size to just 40GB?

Cheers
Sim

[devils casper]

OK, I'll give it a go. Though I was planning on just shrinking the partition on the current E drive (I think the drive is about 80Gig, I was planning on leaving 40 as a data store place where both Windows and Linux can read and write stuff to and using 40 GB for the new Linux partition. D'you think in that case XP will see the old E drive as before except shrunk in size to just 40

yes ! thats a very good idea. right now, 80 GB for Linux is too much. divide it into two parts. first FAT32 40GB ( it will be E: drive) and leave rest as free/unpartitioned space. dont format it... Linux installer will format it itself... this is easiest and safest way to install Linux.




casper

[sim]

Brilliant.

Thanks for this. I'l give it a go and let you know how I get on (prob won't be till tomorrow night or Sunday now though as I'm off out tonight).

Thanks again.

Cheers
Sim

[sim]

OK

I gave it a go last night. Didn't get very far though! I got to the first install screen ok where I selected install from dvd or something like that (the first option after "boot from hard drive" which is initially highlighted). There were some error messages but I can't remember what they said and didn't write them down. I may try and have another go tonight selecting the "install without acpi" option which I noticed was a possibility and see if I get any further. I will also write down any error messages I get, etc.

Cheers
Sim

[devils casper]

I will also write down any error messages I get,

yes! we need error message for further suggestion. in most cases, acpi create problems. try to install with acpi off.




casper

[sim]

Hi

OK, longish post to follow!!!

I tried various options - acpi off installation option, disabling acpi in bios, different combinations of hdd's connected (mostly by mistake ), etc.

same log results as follows (I have left out the stuff that seemed to be going ok, starting from :

* found a Mandriva Linux CDROM, good news!
* Total Memory: 2048 Mbytes
* mount_clp_may_preload: /sysroot/tmp/image//install/stage2//mdkinst.clp into /sysroot/tmp/stage2 (preload = 1)
* short write (I?O error)
* third party: using modules location /sysroot/tmp/image
* fopen(stage1.C:343) failed: No such file or directory
* unsetting automatic
* exiting bootsplash

the only bit of interest before this is
* looking for ide media
* IDE/1 : hdb is a ST340016A (note this changed as I changed the hard drives connected)
* IDE/0 : hdd is a DVD-RW IDE1008
* mounting /dev/hdd on sysroot/tmp/media as type iso9660

the kernel panic messages are really boring along the following lines:

<4>hdd: command error: status = 0x51 {DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
<4>hdd: command error: error=0x54 {AbortedCommand LastFailedSense=0x05}
<4>end request:I/O error, dev hdd, sector 8911812
<3> Buffer I/O error on device hdd, logical block 2227953

This then repeats with just the numbers changing as follows:
8911816, 2227954
8911820, 2227955
8911824, 2227956
8911828, 2227957
8911800, 2227950
8911804, 2227951

Having typed this all out I have a horrible feeleing that what it measn is that the disk has been corrupted during burning.

Can I use the md5 sum on the dvd in some way to see if the burn was succesful or corrupted?

Thanks
Sim