[TonyY]

Dual boot software - XP / SUSE Linux

I am about to try and install a dual boot system to cope with an existing XP and a new SUSE 10.2 Linux using Suse install disks. I've got 2 80GB hard drives on SATA links but have only formatted the 3 windows partitions on the first hard drive using an NTFS system.

What I want to do is to be able to switch on and have the choice of XP or Suse from a menu and I would prefer to use the second hard drive for my Linux installation to keep the 2 systems completely separate.

The second hard drive has already been partitioned but not formatted by the XP install.

How do I go about this please as I have already tried the SUSE install and got a headache just thinking about what options to choose - so I gave in and backed out. Luckily my XP system still works fine.

P.S. I have already read some threads about dual booting Fedora and Ubuntu but I'm not much wiser wrt Suse 10.2.

Thanks

I will also hopefully be installing an internet link to both systems of the same machine and I have heard that Linux can be a bit tricky with regard to the modem hardware and software it uses etc. My present kit is an Orange Livebox 8MBPS running through one of my Ethernet connections - the livebox itself looks like it's made by INVENTEL model DV4210-WU. This means absolutely nothing to me but it works on XP at the moment and I'm hoping to use the same hardware for the SUSE Linux. I suppose I could always have a fallback position of using the Internet from XP only but this is far from ideal as I eventually want to get rid of M/Soft Windows for good. Just need the experience of building Linux and getting confident with it first.

I also have a TOMPSON ADSL modem rated at about 2 MBPS which works from the USB port.

Many thanks - hope all you geniuses out ther can help.

[lotuseclat79]

When you think about it, you should ask yourself why in the world would partitioning a Linux drive make any sense by using a WinXP install piece of software?

Windows of any ilk does not know what a properly partitioned hard drive for Linux would look like. All partitioning software do not do the exact same thing expecting to prepare a hard disk for a variety of OSes other than the one they are normally used to partition - in this case partitioning a hard drive for WinXP is ok with a WinXP install partition manager, but not a Linux hard drive.

Here is how my 80GB WinXP and Linux hard drives are partitioned (Note: output is from fdisk -l command run from the root (sysadmin) in Ubuntu Linux):

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x60276028

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 9728 78140128+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5fd95fd9

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 14 9538 76509562+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 9539 9729 1534207+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

If the WinXP install partition for your Linux drive only partitioned the entire drive - you can see you've got some work to do to get it to be similar to mine.

Use the above output to feed into GParted partition manager to ease your decision making, and if after partitioning your Linux hard drive like mine, you should then be able to point your Suse installer at the hard drive and install it.

I have a dual-boot Grub menu that selects between WinXP and Linux. I highly recommend it.

-- Tom