Win Xp and Linux for newbie

[Alex_gregory_uk]

I am looking to install Linux. The reason for this is so if windows fails I can still access the files on my hard drive.

Is it best to install linux on the same hard drive, or seperate partition?

I have fedora Core, and mandrake 9.1, any suggestions of which i should go with?

Any other comments too please.

[mhelios]

Use the Windows version of fdisk to create a partition for XP and leave some unpartitioned, unformatted free space at the end of the disk (at least 5G) for Linux.
Install XP first. Then install Fedora. Anaconda will ask you if you want to manually or automatically partition your disk. Just choose auto. When at the boot loader (GRUB) screen, choose install to MBR. When the installation is complete and you reboot, GRUB will have a GUI menu available where you can choose between XP or Fedora.

[Alex_gregory_uk]

So you suggest installing on a partition of my windows drive, and not a fresh drive?

I have heard that fedora can not read an NTFS partition, so is it better to install mandrake or red hat for my purposes?

[proffit]

Well.. Fedora kinda is redhat and mandrake really won't fix your problem either. There are some options out there for allowing linux to read ntsf but in general they are alittle buggy and unrealiable (only what I have read never used them myself) my suggestion to you would be to check out knoppix. Knoppix is a version of linux that is called a Live version. just pop it in your cdrom drive and it will run from there, no installation required. That way since you only want to use linux to get acess to your windows partition incase of a problem you will be able to use that. I have heard knoppix has alittle more luck reading and writing to ntsf partitions and I believe it does this by using drivers already on your disc.. not exactly sure but it should work for you, give it a try. Best thing about knoppix is you really can't mess up your computer with it. There should be sites that allow you to download it then all you need to do is burn the iso to cd. It will also help you become familiar with linux and to see how well it will work on your system.

Michael

[mhelios]

Alex_gregory_uk,
If you have a second hard disk, then by all means install Fedora to that. It will make the whole process a lot easier for you. I just gave you the general run down for dual booting the two OS's on one disk.

Fedora fully supports the reading of NTFS partitions just as much as Knoppix or any other distro. The support comes from the kernel and linux's kernel has supported this for a while now. For details on setting this up, see my post in this thread:
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=186

Writing to NTFS partitions is still very much experimental and not guaranteed to be stable as yet. Again, this is distro-independent. There is a project that's making great progress in this regard and some say has solved the rw problem. It's located here:
http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/
You may want to also read this as an opposite methid - writing to linux from windows:
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html#3.2workaround

Further note that the 2.6.x line of the linux kernel has preliminary (stable) support for NTFS rw.

[YourDoom123]

I did that but in the gui menu windows wasn't there so fearing the worst i reinstalled. Now there is no gui menu showing 2 operating systems. Windows just boots automatically.

[mhelios]

Originally posted by YourDoom123
I did that but in the gui menu windows wasn't there so fearing the worst i reinstalled. Now there is no gui menu showing 2 operating systems. Windows just boots automatically.

Windows has reclaimed the bootloading duties. You'll need to re-install grub to get your menu back. Follow this guide:
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=159

[YourDoom123]

too late now cause my dad made me reinstall windows and get rid of fedora. i left space for fedora so i can reinstall as soon as i figure out how to dual-boot.

[mhelios]

Originally posted by YourDoom123
too late now cause my dad made me reinstall windows and get rid of fedora. i left space for fedora so i can reinstall as soon as i figure out how to dual-boot.
Well, hopefully you can convince your Dad that Linux is not a toy or inferior in any way to WIndows (quite the opposite!).

Dual-booting shouldn't be too difficult. If you have left some (unformatted) space on the drive for linux, then simply booting off Fedora CD1 will run the installation program anaconda. Basically, as I mentioned in my post above.

If you find WIndows is auto-booting instead of the GRUB boot menu, follow the stpes in the link I posted above to reclaim GRUB to the MBR.

Just think: when you do get FC1 installed alongside Windows, you can introduce your Dad to it...maybe he will realise how much better it is and tell you to get rid of Windows! (well you can only try right?:) )

[vorte[x]]

Hi YourDoom123,

Has this been resolved/or in need of any more attention?

- V

[leadgolem]

Fedora doesn't exactly support NTFS access. However, if you follow the instructions here http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/rpm/instructions.html you should be able to access your NTFS partition for read only. If you are using the latest fedora core you will almost certainly need this rpm http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/linux-ntfs/kernel-module-ntfs-2.6.11-1.14_FC3-2.1.22-0.rr.6.3.i586.rpm

Just don't try to run the rpm from the gui, for some reason when I did that it wouldn't work. Had to remove it with yum and reinstall from the terminal.