Want to dual boot Windows XP Linux Mandrake

[RobBoberts]

I would like to setup a my system so on boot it can chose between Windows XP and Linux Mandrake. I would like the default to be Windows for now. I only have one hard drive available to me right now, which has Windows XP installed using the entire hard drive (NTFS). I would like to shrink the Windows partition instead of reinstalling everything. What utilities would you recommend to shrink the partition, what should the windows partition look like when I am done and how then do I install Linux? Or would you recommend some other way?

Televison will make radio obsolete.

 

[smah]

I haven't used it, but Mandrake has been able to resize NTFS partitions during the installation process since version 9.2. See the first paragraph here

http://www.mandrakelinux.com/ru/9.2/features/

 

[RobBoberts]

Cool has anyone out there tried to do this?

Televison will make radio obsolete.

 

[subneutrino]

that is EXACTLY what I want to do...I'm a recent convert to linux and mandrake is the distribution I like best (tried knoppix off the cd rom drive, but am ready for a bigger commitment). However, like it or not, windows is the lingua franca out there in dullsville, and I'd like to keep my hand in there as well. However, I'd like to do most everything in mandrake,and would prefer to do it in the most painless way. If there's some way to create a partition without going through the rigamarole of backing up and reformatting, that's what I'd like to do.

Advice would be nice.

 

[RobBoberts]

K so the blind leading the blind:
1) defragment your hard drive and run chkdsk /f from a command prompt till there are no erorrs.
2) boot up on your Linux Mandrake CD and when it askes you where to install the OS pick "Free Space" if Windows XP takes up your entire hard drive like mine did it will volinteer to resize your Windows XP partition (what I did and it worked). Then it will automatically partition and install linux. On boot it will default to Linux, so if you want to boot into Windows you will have to select it befor the timer ends. I think you can change the default to windows but it don't know how to do that yet(I think it is in lilo somewhere?).

Don't forget to backup all your data before you let the install resize incase all does not go well.

My install locked up after it resized and was installing applications, so I rebooted got the linix or Windows prompt, went into windows and deleted the linux partitions cuz I wanted to reinstall. Don't do that. I can get to windows, but now I have to manually partition and fingure out how to use lilo so I can tell it where the new partitions are. Of course I first have to figure out how many partitions and how big the partitions should be for linux, so if anyone out there knows let me know. . .

Televison will make radio obsolete.

 

[subneutrino]

awesome...when get a few hours free, I'll try it out. I'll just blame you if it doesn't work...kidding. Thanks for the tip

subneutrino, the particle that is too small to exist

 

[jstreich]

I think mandrake uses FIPS, which you could do manually. Note that FIPS doesn't allow you to control the size of the partitions, it'll half the drive into two equal partions (or at least thats all the older versions did, if I recall correctly). There is also a tool that isn't freeware called Partion Magic that allows you to completely control where and how big partions are; but, it's fairly expensive.

 

[RobBoberts]

What is FIPS?
When I ran the install it automatically (and successfully) shrunk my Windows XP NTFS partition. It asked my how big I wanted it to be and automatically created the Linux partitions (new feature in 9.2

http://www.mandrakelinux.com/fi/9.2/features/)

Televison will make radio obsolete.

 

[jstreich]

FIPS is a program for non-destructive splitting of harddisk partitions.

from

http://www.igd.fhg.de/~aschaefe/fips/

It's probably the program that Mandrake's install uses. It's a fairly simple easy to use program that does just what you were looking for. It can't be run from inside windows because it's not thread safe (i.e. if some program needed to swap memory out to virtual memory while the repartitioning was going on...), so it needs to be run from DOS or from a linux install program.

 

[Tarwn]

Note: Don't be alarmed if windows wants to scandisk/chkdisk the next time you boot it up. Generally your moving around system files (those pesky files get written in some wierd spots on the HDD) and it just needs to rebuild part of the file table and make sure it's all still there (hmm, arms, check, left leg, check, ... ).

Also, for future options another tool I have used for this is part f a suite of tools on a bootable CD called System Rescue CD. Basically it is a trimmed down botable Linux CD with just about every tool you canthink of in several varieties. I think it even has some ghosting/imaging software on it that Ineve think of using until after it is to late

-T