Ok, I have the DVD downloaded and burned. I really don't want to screw anything up so if someone can point me to a how to or explain it here, I want to dual boot windows xp pro and mandriva le2005. What do I have to do? Also, does mandriva create the paritions itself? like swap file and boot? Or do I need to create these things myself.Any help is appreciated, thanks.
Just some extra info I have 2 physical hard drives, I want Linux on the second one. Would that be hdb?
Just boot with the dvd in the drive.
When you get to the partitioning section, install to hdb, that is your second hard drive.
And yes, Mandriva will create the necessary partitions.
Make sure that LiLo gets installed to the MBR. And it should provide you with a dual boot.
Welcome to the wonderful world of linux.
I think you'll need to have lilo installed on the first hard drive, hda. To make thing s easier, install it to hdb, then change your boot order in the BIOS to allow Hard Disk 2 boot first. Lilo can complain sometimes if it can't access its config file (ie if it's on another, unmounted disk)
Well I set the boot loader on hda and I was greeted with L 01 01 01 01 01 etc. Thank god I made a windows recovery disk. Help? I guess I will just delete the drive and start again :( Oh and for some reason its just not recognizing my USB mouse, I tried every setting and it just wouldn't work. I found an old PS/2 mouse and it worked but it was soooooooo slow like it lagged.
Ok now I can't boot without that floppy in.. how do I fix whatever I broke :(
# File generated by DrakX/drakboot
# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file
default="linux"
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 splash=silent"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 devfs=nomount"
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda