Hello,
I have a dual-boot system (with windows-98 and redhat 7.3) setup on an old hard disk. I recently obtained a new hard drive and have their order configured such that the old drive is /dev/hda and the new one is /dev/hdb. The partitions on /dev/hda are as follows:
/dev/hda1 * 1 960 7703608+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/hda2 960 963 30240 83 Linux /dev/hda3 963 1365 3228120 83 Linux /dev/hda4 1365 1653 2313360 5 Extended /dev/hda5 1365 1397 257008+ 82 Linux swap /dev/hda6 1397 1653 2056288+ 83 Linux
with /dev/hda2 -> /boot, /dev/hda3 -> /, /dev/hda6 -> /home.
The partitions on /dev/hdb are defined as:
/dev/hdb1 1 6684 53689198+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/hdb2 6685 8143 11719417+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb3 8144 9600 11703352+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb4 9601 9729 1036192+ 82 Linux swap
I want to: install Fedora on /dev/hdb by making /dev/hdb2 -> /, copy /dev/hda6 to /dev/hdb3 (-> /home) and successfully dual-boot. I have the following questions;
1. Can I boot from the Fedora CD and get the installation going (with properly defined partitions) and subsequently mounting and copying /dev/hda6 to /home, without disturbing anything on /dev/hda at all?
You should be able to. I haven't actually done a Fedora install, but I'd be amazed if it couldn't handle this configuration.
2. Is it preferred that I preserve the /boot partition - i.e. will it help if /boot remains on /dev/hda2?
It mainly depends on what your BIOS will put up with. LILO (or do you use GRUB?) doesn't care where the boot partition (in effect, the Linux kernel) is, as long as the BIOS can find it. The historical reason for a separate boot partition was the old 1024-cylinder limit for BIOS access, a limit long gone. I've seen some occasional BIOS problems still, though, with drives over 40 GB. If your system has such a problem, you'll need a boot partition spmewhere near the front of one of the drives.
3. What are the details I must watch out for in this process?
Hard to say, aside from inane advice like "Don't do anything silly". You've pretty much asked the right questions.
As long as you tell Fedora to install to hdb2, it should ignore all the hda* partitions (except maybe for asking you if you want to specify mount points for them). And, as I said, you will have to wait and see if you can boot a kernel located on hdb2.
Remember that with this approach, you're still installing lilo (or GRUB or whatever) on the MBR of hda. So you'll need either to add back in the multi-boot stuff that lets Windows boot, or install Fedora to boot from floppy, then edit your existing multiboot setup to add Fedora to it.
Were I doing this, I think I'd do it the reverse way -- make the new drive hda and the old one hdb. Fiddle with the partitioning as needed to get a working /boot partition for Linux. Probably only have one real Linux partition (plus a small /boot partition), just to avoid an Extended partition ... though the merits of that idea depend completely on what you actually use this system for.
Then install Windows to the new hda1, Linux to the new hda2 and hda3 ... and use the old drive, however you reconfigure it, as a data drive.
4. Finally - if all goes well, can I delete partitions /dev/hda(2)3-6 and make /dev/hda available as one single partition, without hosing windows?
Not with Linux tools (though fdisk can easily delete hda2-6 for you). You'll need help from a Windows list to modify the size of the actual Windows partition.
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