Debian and installing Win2000

[Dave2001]

Hey Guys !


I have a nice working Debian testing system on my computer there are no problems with that one . But now i want to install Win2000 addionally on my box . I need it for some games i want to play . Anyway - all the space on my harddisk is already occupied by Debian - so i would have to resize my ReiserFS partitions . As well i dont know about the booting process - Windows will write itself in the MBR but how do i recover Linux then ?

Any help would be very apreciated !

David

[slacker_x]

I think you are in for a rough if not impossible ride. I don't know if you can resize reiser partitions. I haven't seen anything about it. I've never dual-booted a windows 2k/linux system, so I can't help you there. One thing I was wondering about is:
why install windows 2000 if it is only for games? Wouldn't 98 be a better choice?

Good luck

[Craig McPherson]

Originally posted by Dave2001:
<STRONG>Anyway - all the space on my harddisk is already occupied by Debian - so i would have to resize my ReiserFS partitions.</STRONG>

There's a ReiserFS partition resizer. It's probably already on your system if you have the ReiserFStools (or ReiserFSprogs, I forget which) package installed.

As well i dont know about the booting process - Windows will write itself in the MBR but how do i recover Linux then

Windows does not put its bootloader in the MBR. It does repair the MBR to the IBM standard if it's been damaged.

Neither does Debian, unless you've done so intentionally.

Since neither OS uses the MBR, you have no conflict. It's just a matter of setting active partitions.

[bdg1983]

In my /sbin directory, I see there is

resize_reiserfs

though I have no idea on how it works.

[Dave2001]

Actually i believe i have done so as i did put lilo in the mbr . Before i begin things do i have to put lilo on a floppy so that i can restore it later or so ?

David

[Craig McPherson]

It's always good to have a boot disk before doing something like this. It's always good to have a boot disk, in general.

A LILO bootdisk is good, but the fastest way to make a functional boot disk is to just dd your kernel onto a floppy:

dd if=/vmlinuz of=/dev/fd0

...for example. This will destroy anything on the floppy.

[Dave2001]

But how will i recover from the win2000 installation - and doesnt win2000 need to be installed on the first partition of the harddisk ? Which is not possible coz i have installed linux there .

David

[Dave2001]

Ok for everybody who has or will have the same problem - here is how i did it .
Unfortunatly i lost my whole old system with it - so this situation is not really the best one - but it was the only one i could think of .

First i made partitions - the first partition on the hard disk is for windows 2000 . The rest you can choose how you want it .
Second - install windows 2000
Third - install Linux
After your first reboot it will most likly go directly into Linux - To change that you have to change lilo.conf :

other=/dev/hda
label=win2000
table=/dev/hda


That was all . Now you will be able to boot into windows or into Linux .

David