Whats the best way to do this?

[TMD]

Here's the idea

I have a 30Gb harddrive that i want to dual boot (winME and linux Mandrake 8) I want 5 partitions in total. C - 2.5Gb WinME D - 2.5gb All Linux E - 6Gb Programs F - 10Gb Games G - 7Gb Media. What i want to know is what is the best way of setting up linux. This is really only my first time using linux...i tried to dual boot it a couple of days ago and failed miserabley. So can someone give me detailled instructions on how and what to setup and create on the partition during the mandrake 8 installation or post a link that does. And is it possible to install linux first then Me even if Me is going on the C drive and would that be better than putting ME on first. Hope that is clear. Thanks in advance. TMD

[bdg1983]

Create...

2.5GB Primary Fat32
2.5GB Primary ext2
Extended
128MB + or - Logical Linux Swap
6GB Logical Fat32 for Programs
10GB Logical Fat32 for Games
7GB Logical Fat32 for Media

Using Partition Magic would make the process quite easy.

Not sure how the Mandrake installation works with the partitioning.

If you don't have any other partitioning tools except for win/dos fdisk and Mandrake, then use fdisk first and create the 2.5GB Primary, format and install ME.

Next start the Mandrake install in ?? Expert Mode and create the rest of the partitions including the other primary and the 4 logical partitions, 3 as fat32.

Install Mandrake in the other primary partition and then after a successful install, startup ME and format the remaining 3 fat32 logical partitions labeling them appropriately.

Make sense?

Like I said, using something like Partition Magic would make this a breeze as it is a similar setup that I use.

[bdg1983]

Another thing... If you were to have 98, ME and W2K using 3 primary partitions, then you would just create an extra logical partition for installing Linux.

Linux can be installed in a primary or logical partition.

If you follow my first advise, then either

1. Install Lilo or Grub (the bootloader) in the MBR and then it should be able to boot either os.

2. Install the bootloader in the Linux boot/root partition and then use fdisk and set that partition as active which would be hda2.