On Sunday 05 Oct 2003 11:04 pm, Aaron West wrote: > Evening all, > > Simple question here. I'm getting closer to the point of > being ready for the 9.1 install but want some opinions. Since > I'm going to dual boot with Windows 2000 (Windows with use > a completely different physical hard drive, my current 15GB > hard drive. Linux will use the new 120GB Maxtor) and Linux, > I've been trying to determine the order of OS install. > > I read somewhere that you should install Windows first before > you install Linux. I'm going to completely wipe my current > Windows install in order to start fresh. And then will be > installing Linux on the new hard drive. Is it the right > idea to go ahead and get the fresh Windows drive working > so once the new HD comes in I'll be ready to go?
Yes. Points to remember: 1. Do not change which drive is the master and which the slave if you can help it. Windows will get confused if it sees drive C change to drive D. You should be fine if you leave the 15GB as the master drive with a single partition on it and install the new drive as slave. If you partition the 15GB then the primary partition of the new slave drive may (IIRC) be positioned between the 15GB primary and secondary partitions if it is recognised by Windows. But if all the partitions on the slave drive are Linux filesystems then Windows should ignore them. 1a. You may find that the CD changes drive letters if any partitions on the slave drive are readable by Windows. This will mean that any time it needs the install disk you will have to tell it where to find the CD. 2. Windows will not install a dual-boot bootsector. Linux will. That is why you install Linux second. 3. Linux support for ntfs is not perfect. It is recommended to use it read-only. vfat (FAT32 etc.) is not a good choice for a 15GB partition. Summary: install Windows first. Put a smallish vfat partition on the 15GB drive to act as common space between the OSs but use ntfs for the rest. Format the slave drive using only Linux filesystems. Disclaimer: the last time I did this sort of thing it was dual-booting between NT4 and Win95. -- Richard Urwin
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