Win98se and Mandrake90

[D3T]

Hi,
I've downloaded the 3 ISOs for Mandrake9.0, and burned them to 3 CDs.
I'd like to dual boot with Windows 98, however I have absolutely no idea how to go about this, using a second drive (currently FAT32/16) for Linux :)

Basically: I'd like windows98se on C: , (where it is now) and Mandrake installed on D: , which is a drive i have few files on.

Do i:
* Format D: in windows/dos/wherever
* Run linux installer from CD1,2,3
* Hey presto it works,

Or do I have to do some fancy trickery with partitions and the like?
I do have a tool from W.Digital that came with a new HDD i bought a while back that allows me to partition, but it runs in DOS and I'm not sure if DOS/Windows formatted disks like/run under *nix filesystems.

Someone pointed me in the direction of XOSL (www.xosl.org) - but their pages confused me further as I have little experience of partitioning really.


PS: Whats a grasshopper and whats it doing with linux?!

Yours for the helping.

[D3T]

Sorry:
Seems after further investigation I should do this:

* Boot from CD drive (containing CD1)
* Use installer to format my D: drive for linux etc.

[Exodus2001]

Format your drive with a C: and D: partition with your windows 98 start-up disk. Use fdisk. Put Windows on drive C: as normal. When windows is done installing put the Mandrake CD in the drive then use common sense and it will be easier than you think. Mandrake has the best disk partitioning tools known to Linux. Mandrake won't care if it is fat32 or ext3 on the partitions before the install.

When you get to the point when it asks you to partition the disk use: custom disk partitioning.
Delete the non windows side know as D:. Now pick auto allocate. You will now see 3 partitions on the Linux side. hda5, swap, hda7. Press done and continue with the install.

Don't try to resize your windows drive and then install Linux. Why? because they will both run like crap. Split the drive up before hand. Installing windows first will save allot of time and problems in the end.

Patrick

[D3T]

Cheers for quick response: but considering my second drive is pretty much empty, cant i stick all the files onto my other drive, and let linux have a whole drive to itself?

Primary Master -> Windows
Pimart Slave -> linux
sort of thing?

[Exodus2001]

Sorry I didn't see you had two hard drives. You are correct. Let the windows drive be the master and the linux drive be the slave. Put the master boot record (mbr) on the master windows drive and the machine will boot right. If by mistake you put the boot manager (either lilo or grub) on the linux drive it will only boot into windows at start-up because your bios is telling the computer to boot off your c: drive.

Linux (all *nix) lables your drives differnetly. Your windows drive will be called hda and your second hard drive will be called hdb in Linux.

Patrick

[D3T]

Cheers again :)