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XP and partition limit?

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I recently set up a laptop with Linux RedHat 9, leaving about half the drive empty for use for XP. After the install I started the XP install and got the to partition choice window. It showed the 3 Linux partitions (root, swap, home) and the free space. I chose the free space to install XP into, but it gave me an error – couldn’t install XP because the limit of partitions had been reached. What’s up with that? I’ve never come across that before. Since I had to get the machine up and running as soon as possible I wiped the drive and started over, this time with XP first, then Linux (the way I usually set up dual-boot boxes). But what’s the deal with the partition limit, especially since there were only 3 partitions?

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Reply To: XP and partition limit?

In reply to XP and partition limit?

As far as I remember, the only way you can really setup a DB Windoze/*nix box is with Windoze installed first and then you can install the real OS.

Otherwise, Windoze gets confused and doesnt’ know what to do.

I know there are plenty of *nix wizards in here that may be able to further explain for you, i’m just a *nix Novice… But I do know Win first, then the rest after….

Mrafrohead

Limitations

In reply to XP and partition limit?

There are partition limitations in XP (in fact these are DOS limitations). You are limited to 4 Primary partitions, or three Primary partitions and 1 Extended partition (which may be further subdivided into multiple logical drives.)

BTW, even the Redhat documentation recommends installing Windows before installing Linux, so there must be some reason for that. I suspect that it may have something to do with how Linux creates the MBR, and Windows not reading it properly.

Reply To: XP and partition limit?

In reply to Limitations

The laptop had already been setup as a dual boot system, it had a messed up partition table. I ran fdisk /mbr and was able to get back in to XP but of course, not Linux. I thought I could just reinstall Linux, but that didn’t work, so I wiped the whole thing and started over with Linux first. I thought, well, it’s going now, so I’ll see what happens. Well, you now know what happened – I had to wipe it again and install XP first. It’s all back up and running again. I was just curious about the partition limits that XP seemed to have.

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