Dual Boot

[DrLZRDMN]

Heres the situation: I am currently running WinME and I would like to use Linux instead but, I can't simply format the harddrive as its not realy my computer (It belongs to the family, I cant afford one of my own) and I want to keep some of the files. All of the boot loaders\electors I've seen require that operating systems be on their own partition, I haven't found a way to partition the hardrive without formatting other than Partition Magic which costs more than a new hard drive. If there is a free aplication similar to this it must be able to run on windoze as Knoppix (which I have been playing around with) does not give root priveleges such as hard drive acsess (only read). So I need either of these:

A linux bootable that give root prileges, and a linux partitioner

A boot selector that alows same partion OS's (that installs in windows or the stated bootable)

A free windows partitioner.

A free hard drive ;)


p.s. I fond a partitioner that runs in linux, PartGUI (http://part-gui.sourceforge.net/)

p.p.s. The name of the above seems to imply that linux can make partitions on its own so I guess the rootboot and some instructions that a complete n00b such as myself could follow would be necessary.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

For the partitioning, there's FIPS (http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/install-guide/s1-x86-dualboot-fips.html). That link is for the instructions on using FIPS. It should be included with most any Linux distro to help you make new space for a Linux partition. Just defragment your Windows partition, and you can then use FIPS to cleave off a portion of your FAT partition to use with Linux.

As far as the bootloader goes, you could just make a LILO or GRUB bootdisk, so you could only boot to the Linux install if you booted from the floppy disk.

Would that really satisfy you requirements? Your question is a little unclear...

[drummerboy195]

IIRC, WinME uses a FAT32 filesystem, does it not? I'm pretty sure that any installer you get can resize that without data damage, as long as its all defragged, disk-checked, and all that jazz. I know that I did this with my laptop, and that used NTFS, so I'm pretty sure you can resize a FAT32 w/o data corruption. However, to err on the side of safety, make backups if at all possible, over a network, on a CD, on a bunch of floppies if you have to. Back it up first.