Thanks for your response, Ray. I am still not particularly clear about the /boot partition -- what exactly is it used for? I did have an older BIOS on this hard-drive a while ago, and needed the /boot partition then to dual boot. Now, if my BIOS can "see" all of /dev/hdb then its not necessary for this partition to exist?
I would probably use GRUB as the bootloader -- isn't it likely that GRUB will be able to figure out how to modify my MBR on /dev/hda so that I could boot windows from /dev/hda and Linux from /dev/hdb? Whats a good way to save the MBR and the partition-info (and restore, if need be)? I would like to follow your advice in switching the drives around and reinstalling both windows and Linux -- but, all I have for the windows "install" CD is a custom HP-disk which is quite useless now, since I don't have the HP-system anymore :-? Moreover, there are way too many things installed under the m$oft-OS, that I don't wish to go through trying to reinstall. -K On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, at 6:11pm, Ray Olszewski wrote: > >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. > > > > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in > the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs > - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs
