[Cunjo]

My current WinXP configuration has reached the "Proper F***ed" phase of it's life, and I will be starting fresh soon. What I need, is advice on how to best set up a Dual-boot system with Windows XP and Red Hat Linux, and get them to coexist on the same laptop; same 37GB HDD.

First off, I need to know how to go about paritioning the drive; if I partition with the Windows utility, Linux won't recognize it most likely, and as far as I know, once I partition with Red Hat, I need to go through and install it, which would undermine windows and prevent me from installing it... am I missing something? how do I get started here?

I've a 37GB local disk which I want to keep both operating systems and the more commonly used applications on, a 20GB USB HDD that I want to share between the two, and use primarily for Linux storage, and a 200GB USB HDD that I want to use for Windows files, but should be readable from Linux.

Also, how do Red Hat 9 and Fedora Core 4 compare, and which would you recommend for a 1.18/2.20GHz ACPI notebook with 512MB of DDR SDRAM and only around 10GB of available HDD space?
(I've used Red Hat 9 on an older system before, but haven't yet had a chance to try Fedora Core 4)
PS. It MUST recognize an MN-720 Wireless PC Card.

[nitram]

Just a couple of pointers..

Be sure to formatt the external storage using FAT / FAT32, this will enable you to share data between the two operating systems.

When installing Linux / Windows it would be a safer bet to install your Windows partition first, as Microsoft like to ignore that there is an operating system already on the system and overwrite the MBR.

Hope this helps.

[Cunjo]

I already know about the filesystem issue, and luckily, my external storage devices are already formatted in FAT32. Only the partition that windows operating system will reside in will be NTFS.

Unfortunately, that really doesn't help. These are all things I know already. What I really need to know, is how to partition the drive and how to install Linux onto the designated partition after windows has been installed; the rest I can do.

[Cunjo]

Issue resolved; Windows' install CD allowed me to partition for installation only half the drive, leaving the other half open, which Mandriva Linux happily installed onto. I'll be starting a new thread for the current issue....