[GLLUG] Re: Setting Up a Dual-boot System

Charles Tower c.e.tower at gmail.com
Sat Jun 24 00:03:43 EDT 2006


If you're going to add a second drive, Frank, I suggest you do it before 
installing Windows if you think you might ever have more than one 
Windows partition on either drive.  I have one PC with an MS OS on it 
(Win98SE), and several partitions on the first drive, as well as Linux. 
  I recently added a second drive, and damn if Windows didn't decide to 
assign d: to it, even though it doesn't have any Windows-formatted 
partitions on it, and never did.  Now my original d:, e:, and f: Windows 
partitions have had their names bumped up one letter of the alphabet. 
That makes program links and registry entries wrong for a lot of stuff, 
because I installed all my third-party software on one of those 
partitions.  I've been told that if it were WinXP I could just reassign 
drive letters as they were, but I won't upgrade just for this BS.  I'm 
determined to fix it myself, using Linux command-line utilities to 
modify the Windows files, since the DOS command-line is so anemic in 
comparison.

I find it easier to create the partitions how I want them before 
installing Linux, and then just selecting and formatting them during the 
installation.  You should be able to do this with Ubuntu's live CD, 
using cfdisk (command-line) or gparted to create the partitions.  You'll 
be asked how you want to format them during installation.  You would 
want at least two partitions for Linux, one for swap and one for the 
root filesystem.  You can use lots of other partitions for parts of the 
filesystem, and you might want to for servers, but it's usually overkill 
for desktop systems.  Some people insist upon a separate home directory, 
so they can delete the rest of the filesystem without loosing their 
personal data and settings, but Ubuntu (as well as its base, Debian) is 
easy to upgrade in place.

                                Chick


Charles Ulrich wrote:
> Frank Dolinar wrote:
>> Can anyone offer some advice, suggestions, how-to information, or 
>> references.
> 
> In addition to the excellent already posted, I'd like to suggest that it 
> might be a good idea to consider putting Windows and Linux on separate 
> disks. This alleviates a lot of headaches associated with partitioning 
> and dual-booting, if you can spare the second disk and the time required 
> to install it.
> 



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