Fdisk Help!
 

Ok, I almost want to give up on windows as i can barely get my nforce2 board to work with windows 98. I have the red hat install cd's for linux and i'd like to dual boot. I want to create one 5GB partition for windows and the few programs that i use in it, one 5GB partition for linux, and one 30GB partition that according to a knowledgable friend would be something called a mydocs partition usable by both windows and linux. Is he crazy? Is this even possible. I hate fdisk and i don't know too much about it because generally, i just make it all one big partition.

edit//If I bought a second hard drive, could I install only linux now and then Install windows to the second hard drive later on?

Many options here. You an get a second hard drive, and install one operating system on each hard drive, and swap when you want to change or you can dual boot.

This is the way I dual boot, although I don't use dual boot any longer I prefer 1 OS per disk:

Using FDisk:

-delete all partitions primary or secondary
-create one primart partition of any size you like (leave some GBs for your other partition's OS please)
-create a secondary partition of the remaining disk size
-exit and reboot
-now your system will see 2 logical hard drives
-you can now install 1 OS to each hard drive

or:

-follow the same steps in Windows XP setup boot CD

or:

-install Linux on one partition (entire hard drive)
-then install windows to the same partition in it's own directory of course
-dual boot from there

If you're going to use windows 98 I recommend the first way, using fdisk. I do not gaurentee any of these will work and doing any of these can severely mess up your computer. Beware!

Happy headaches!

Actually, you don't need to use FDISK at all. Red Hat linux comes with it's own disc formatter and boot loader (LILO). As was said earlier, if you want both operating systems running you can partition your discs into two sections (or three - your friend is right, both Windows and Linux can read a common drive, but it must be FAT32 formatted. If the Windows partition is of type NTFS, the partition can not be read in Linux).

Anyhow, to install. If you already have Windows installed on your system, you must have free hard drive space available on which to install Red Hat Linux. Your choices are as follows:

• Add a new hard drive.
• Use an existing hard drive or partition.
• Create a new partition.

For all three options, be aware that the BIOS in some older systems cannot access more than the first 1024 cylinders on a hard drive. If this is the case, the /boot Linux partition must be located on the first 1024 cylinders of your hard drive to boot Linux.

The simplest way to make room for Red Hat Linux is to add a new hard drive to the computer and then install Linux on that drive. If you are installing on a new drive, all you need to do is start the Linux installation, and select the lilo boot loader when it comes up in the menu.

If you already have a patrition that you want to install on (something other than your windows partition of course), backup anything you might need from it, then start the Linux installation and tell it to install in the designated drive or partition — for example, in the hard drive or partition that Windows designates as D:. During the partitioning phase of the Linux installation, delete the second partition (hda2 or sda2), then partition the unallocated free space. You do not have to delete the second partition prior to starting the Red Hat Linux installation.

The final method is to create a new partition for Linux on the hard drive being used by the other operating system. This is a little trickier, as your windows files can be spread across the drive, so the best thing to do is use something like partitionmagic, which reorganises your files in the process. After partitioning, run the Linux installation program, you can partition the remainder of the drive for Linux.

so you want to give up on windows just because you cant get a board what wasnt made for the current out of date version of windows you use because nvidia sucks as far as backwards compatability goes?

why not get xp pro?

anyways, as far as both OS's being able to share a area of data would mean you'd have to use fat32 as nix cant handle ntfs and windows cant handle nixfs (by default)

but i'm pretty sure that nix cant handle anything but nixfs nowadays getting all corperate like it is now

That is just too logical, Invisible Man.

I'm just going to buy a second hard drive and install windows on it later.

i got one 60gig split into 3, 2 5 gigs and 1 50gigs the 50gig partition does not have and os on it its just for storage of all media types, one 5 gig partion is for windows xp pro and programs and the left over 5 gig is for future dual boot of longhorn,but no os on that one ither.


can the left over partition be formated to fat32? like having two format types on the same hd but on difrent partitions, im thinking yes, but never tryed it. can i do that to install linx on that other partition?