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Thread: Windows and Linux on separate drives?

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    Windows and Linux on separate drives?

    Is it possible to have Windows XP and Linux Suse 10.1 installed on separate drives and be able to choose at boot which I use? I know that Linux will install on the same drive as Windows but I find tampering with the partitions a bit scary! Can I load a boot manager so that it enables me to have the choice at system start. Thanks for your help with my previous post and please forgive my lack of know how but my Dad always said "if you dont know....Ask"

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    Agent of the System ikonia's Avatar
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    windows MUST exist on the first drive - thats non-negotiable. Linux can exist on any other drive or partition.

    Most Linux distro's installers will detect a windows partition and add it to the boot menu list automaticlly, but its not a big deal to do it manually after the install any way.

    Partitioning the drives is simple and straight forward if you just think about it. Must Linux distros will install either grub or lilo boot loader which will display a menu system at boot time.

    A simple linux install will require only two partitions a / (root file system) and a swap partition so at worst you need to create two partitions on the second drive to allow linux to install to itThis hexus thread
    http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=88803
    has a link to a lot of mainstream distrubutions and their support sites to get specific support for your needs
    Last edited by ikonia; 09-01-2007 at 02:36 PM. Reason: added linux resource URL
    It is Inevitable.....


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    Once again thanks for all the help, this is a very impressive site! Thankyou.

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    If you have a second disk, my advice is to backup all your work onto it and install windows and linux on the main system disk. Partitions aren't as hard as it seems. The link directhex gave is a good summery.
    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    ...every time Creative bring out a new card range their advertising makes it sound like they have discovered a way to insert a thousand Chuck Norris super dwarfs in your ears...

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    what i was getting at was that whilst linux might be installed on disk 2, grub stage 1 would go on disk 1, and stage 1.5/2 onto disk 2, leading to a horrible cross-dependency

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    boot partition fixes that
    It is Inevitable.....


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    Comfortably Numb directhex's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ikonia View Post
    boot partition fixes that
    on the windows drive?

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    Agent of the System ikonia's Avatar
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    yeah put /boot on the windows drive
    It is Inevitable.....


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    Comfortably Numb directhex's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ikonia View Post
    yeah put /boot on the windows drive
    clever

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    grub can't deal with NTFS atm.

    Best thing to do is put /boot in the first partition +128mb max, then swap, then windows, then give the rest to /
    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    ...every time Creative bring out a new card range their advertising makes it sound like they have discovered a way to insert a thousand Chuck Norris super dwarfs in your ears...

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    Agent of the System ikonia's Avatar
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    windows has to be on the first partition unless you use software to re-arranage the partitions.

    Putting /boot on a none ntfs based file system after the windows partition would not be a problem.
    It is Inevitable.....


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    Never had to for me, as long as you have grub already installed and /boot marked with the boot flag.
    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    ...every time Creative bring out a new card range their advertising makes it sound like they have discovered a way to insert a thousand Chuck Norris super dwarfs in your ears...

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    Comfortably Numb directhex's Avatar
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    9x (i.e. msdos) required windows to be on partition 1. nt5 doesn't.

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    Agent of the System ikonia's Avatar
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    fair enough,

    is that also true of the setup files - I've just been chatting to somoene who actually knows windows in the office and although windows may not have to live on partition 1 any more it wants to copy the setup files to free space on partition 1, eg: install windows onto disk 2, will still need space on disk 1 to copy setup files.

    is that correct/rubbish ?
    It is Inevitable.....


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    Not if partition 1 is marked as active/boot. I'm not sure why it demonistrates this odd behaviour. But that's Windows for ya. I toyed around with dual-booting a bit in VMware, expiermenting setups.

    Maybe someone should write a dual-booting guide, it's becoming more and more of a popular topic
    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    ...every time Creative bring out a new card range their advertising makes it sound like they have discovered a way to insert a thousand Chuck Norris super dwarfs in your ears...

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