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Dual Boot

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by farcozy

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Hi There,

I would like to get assistance on how to go about in setting up my PC so that when it boots up I can choose which OS (windows or Unix)I would like to work in. I know that there are softwares that provide this type of user interface but I was just wondering if I could somehow do these by maybe making changes or adjusting some of the windows config files or something like that in order get a prompt to select which OS I would prefare using.

Well that's the question I would like to raise and if you can somehow assist me I would be very grateful for your reply.

My E-mail address is: farcozy@yahoo.com.au

thanks again.

Cheers/farcozy

9 replies

by gigelul

You must create a partition for Windows OS and live some free space on your HDD for Unix/Linux.
-Install Windows in created partition
-Use Linux to create other partition on HDD and install it on this new partition.
-Install Lilo package (boot manager) from your linux distribution. This package will see that you have other OS on your HDD and will create for you a boot manager.
I hope that this will help you.

by siliconwombat

Hi There is apiece of software called partition magic which is fantastic. It allows you to create a partition without the need for formatting or fdisking. makes life a lot easier and it makes it quicker for installing. Ive used it many tuimes successfully but i do reccommend backing up because thes things have a tendency to go tits up if you dont.

by wiqi2003

If u wnat dual boot without using any softwares u need ur harddrive formated as Fat32. If u have NTFS file system u will not be able to have dual boot. NTFS does not support dual boot. When u are done with formating ur hard drive install windows first and then unix. If u install windows second after installing unix first it will delete unix. On the boot it will ask u what operating system u want to use.

by fmcola

i just went through a nightmare with this but have learned a tremendous amount from the experience... i had win2k (NTFS) installed and used partition magic to create a partition for winxp (NTFS), Boot Magic (FAT within the 8G limit) and 2 Linux partitions (ext3 and swap)...

after i installed linux and let it use it's own Booter (GRUB), i could no longer boot anything!!

i had to use linux rescue disk to fix patition table and then i installed win xp and hhad dual boot for both win platforms... installed linux again but did not allow it to use Grub, but instead chose to use a boot disk... this works great, but i'm disappointed in the way this linux release (FEDORA) behaves during install.. very careless programming as far as i'm concerned!!

Maybe other ways would work, but i'm not willing to risk crashing my system to find out... it's working and i'm happy!!

Good Luck!!!

by badermsb

Dual Boot,

I personally don't like to put more than 1 operating system on a drive. I have all of my pc's built to my specs and what I do is have my C Drive a removable drive. I then just power down my pc, switch the drive(takes seconds) and power it back up. I don't have that luxury at work though so I use VM Software. This allows me to run multiple OS's at the same time without having to reboot.

by ihvfaith2

In all my recent configurations of dual/multi boot systems, I've just loaded my Linux distro without using or installing its little multi-boot OS selector and my computers all ask me which OS to boot up to when I fire them up. I didn't do anything special. I just loaded the Linux distro after having my Windows OS(s) loaded beforehand ... and I always load from a boot disk/CD when loading a Linux distro (not from Windows). This has worked for me for years. I didn't know much about Linux when I started ... still don't know a whole lot ;-) I usually ran in my Windows environments.

Someone in this thread had mentioned that you cannot run a multi-boot system with NTFS partitions. I didn't know that ... so I did ... last week and it worked for me. I now multi-boot with "MS Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server", MS Windows 2000 Pro, and MS Windows XP Pro. So far I have not had any problems. Good Luck!

by jw_aw

You can do it, by using fdisk with a win98 floppy you have to delete your partitions and create new partitions, then format them.

by d_brownski

I dual boot between win 2k pro and RedHat 9.0. I've had this configuration for almost a year. I created the windows partition using FAT 32, loaded win 2k pro, and then RedHat. After installing RedHat I opted not use lilo or grub. I used the GAG bootmanager which is free and boots of a floppy. It is a straightfowared configuration that shows your hard drive partitions. 1 for floppy, 2 for win 2 k, and 3 for linux.
I converted my win 2k partion to NTFS after I was fully functional and I have been ok to date.

by gopal k verma

Hi Farcozy

Cheers!!!

Here is the real solution to your problem. Operating systems use a program to load theirselves into memory is called "boot loader". The older boot loader cannot read any operating system query beyond 1024 cylinders on harddisk. So be carefull and this...

Format your computer using FAT32 partition, and load any version of windows, yes any version. If you're using Red Hat 9.0 you need not to bother about 1024 cylinder limitation. If not, then do not exceed the FAT32 (first partition) more than 4 GB. Install Windows properly.

Next, when you will install unix or any linux version do not confuse in boot loader selection. Any boot loader will get your second partition.

DO NOT INSTALL UNIX/LINUX FIRST.

Happy installation

mGopal ;)

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