suse9.3 linux whats best dual boot or separate drive

[ginger]

hi just joined! so hello to everyone1 Can you please help? I am totally new to linux , and i do mean new , i know nothing about partitons resizing of drives bios or other tech stuff, I currently have not surprisingly xp home, but i am very unhappy with a certain software giant as after updates went horribly wrong i have been struggling to get my pc working, the only way i could was to bar them totally from updating my pc as if i did i couldnt use my pc at all hence i bought suse linux 9.3, I went on ebay and also purchased norton partion magic , so i have 5 cds of linux os and one of the latter all i need to get linux i hope on my pc, however I am at a loss to decide on which is the best way to go about getting linux on my system without wrecking my pc totally ,i currently have two drives a 40gb which has windows xp home and nothing else running on it and a separate 120gb d drive which i store everything on photos downloads etc keeping them totally separate, i have external freecom drives as backups, I have bought another 40gb hardrive as i was debating whether or not to install linux on one drive and windows to stay put on the c drive and thus keep all os separate , hence my question which is best to do partition , ie both os systems on one drive or separate drives, if i go for the dual boot solution i need to know how to do this using partition magic , will the hardrive still be able to backup using ghost 2003 if i manage to do this install , so many questions I know but i have done some research i know i have to buy nero for linux if i want to burn discs but i have got confused by too much information on the net, any help appreciated thanks

[truoc444]

if you're new it's easier to install the extra drive and let Suse take over that entire drive (be sure to point it at the right one) then install the Grub Bootloader to the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the Windows Drive. From that you should be all set to dual boot.

[oldcpu]

... hence i bought suse linux 9.3, I went on ebay and also purchased norton partion magic , so i have 5 cds of linux os and one of the latter all i need to get linux i hope on my pc, however I am at a loss to decide on which is the best way to go about getting linux on my system without wrecking my pc totally

Please, some more detail. .... What format are your drives? i.e.
- primary 40GByte WinXP is NTFS or VFAT?
- 120GByte Photo is NTFS or VFAT?
- new 40GByte drive - have you connected this yet? If so, what format?

if you're new it's easier to install the extra drive and let Suse take over that entire drive (be sure to point it at the right one) then install the Grub Bootloader to the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the Windows Drive. From that you should be all set to dual boot.

Not knowing anything else, I would tend to agree with "truoo444". Keep them on separate drives. .... BUT my having said that, there is one advantage to sharing drives, and that is with two different OS on the same drive, if there is a problem with the drive, having two OS can help one confirm the problem is with the drive, and not some OS quirk. Or conversely, confirm the problem is with one of the two OS. With the OS on different drives, that benefit is not as strong.

Of course, one could also take the other point of view, and say having the OS on two different drives, means a drive H/W failure is less likely to cause a loss of "computer time", as one OS will always be available.

hence my question which is best to do partition , ie both os systems on one drive or separate drives, if i go for the dual boot solution i need to know how to do this using partition magic , will the hardrive still be able to backup using ghost 2003 if i manage to do this install , so many questions I know but i have done some research i know i have to buy nero for linux if i want to burn discs but i have got confused by too much information on the net, any help appreciated thanks

There is no need to use partition magic if you follow truoo444's suggestion. SuSE YaST installer will do it all for you (just be careful to select the correct location to install). If you want to give SuSE Yast a helping hand, you could use Partition Magic to preformat your new 40GByte hard drive to a linux file format such as reiserfs, or some other linux format. SuSE YaST will most likely detect the linux formatted drive, and will ask you if you want to install there. Makes the installation a bit easier.

Is your CD/DVD burner an external or internal? The Linux program "K3b" works very good with internal CD/DVD burners. And so there is absolutely no need to purchase Nero for Linux. K3b is more than adequate, and it works great on SuSE-9.3 (unlike SuSE-9.2, where k3b had some issues with the SuSE-9.2 linux kernal version).

Reference your 120GByte data drive, if it is formated to NTFS, you will find Linux has a problem with it. I recommend you have your 120GByte formatted to VFAT32 (which does give you a file size limitation ... max 2 GBytes I think, ... but my memory is hazy on this).

If you have not yet purchased Partition Magic, you can also download one of the latest Knoppix Live CD"s (v3.8 CD or 3.9 CD or 4.0 DVD) and use the program "qtparted". The program "qtparted" is a linux partition magic clone (well, not quite a clone, but the "qtparted" GUI graphical simularities to Partition Magic are such that if you know Partition Magic, you can easily use "qtparted").

You probably have more questions. Please feel free to ask.