Re: A few quick newbie questions...

Jonathan Berry wrote:

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 08:20:43 -0500, Erik Hemdal <ehemdal@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[snip]

Yes, use this approach if you are doing a fresh install, or don't mind
reformatting and reintstalling.  You can do it in other orders, but
this offers the least trouble if you have the choice.  If you have
already installed Linux and have a partition that you can install
Windows on, you can install Windows and then boot to the rescue CD to
reinstall GRUB.  There are plenty of examples of this on the web and
in the archives.  Again, if you have the choice, do it in the order
you specified.

I recommend rebuilding the system, if you can do this. Backup your data and remove everything else. Install XP first, and convert to NTFS if you desire. I recommend adding a partition for moving data between XP and Linux. Of course, this should be a FAT/FAT32 partition.

a system which currently contains XP, reduce the size of your NTFS partition
to make space for Fedora.  Do not alter the small FAT partition which XP has

To resize the NTFS partition, you will need to use Partition Magic
(not free) or qtparted (free).  You can use Knoppix or System Rescue
CD to get qtparted (Google the names to find the sites).  I would also
recommend running scandisk and defrag in Windows to get files toward
the front of the drive to make resizing less dangerous (always a
chance of messing something up, though it has worked for me).   You
can also turn off the swap file, reboot, and defrag before you resize
as the swapfile is usually located somewhere near the end of the drive
(a huge green (unmovable) block in the defrag tool).

As always, before using any partition altering software product, backup your system.

created (XP needs a FAT partition to work). Leave the freed up space

Uhh, I'm not sure what this "small FAT partition" is that Erik talks
of, but my laptop has XP and FC3 on it with no FAT partitions at all. WinXP does not need FAT, if anything, it needs NTFS. Now, I've only
used XP Pro, so perhaps XP Home needs a FAT partition, but I've never
heard that and it doesn't make much sense to me.

XP does not need to have FAT anywhere on a system. I have an older system with Win2K installed on it and all of the drive is NTFS. Linux is gaining the ability to read and write NTFS. I don't know if this is a good thing or not. Only time will tell.
--
James McKenzie
With assistance, Now running 2.6.11rc3, Software Suspend 2
and ibm-acpi .1
Need a home for my .rpm