They *never* make it easy, do they

Post #160,929 by drewk 6/21/04 10:41:40 PM Reply	They never make it easy, do they If I want XP I've got to open the box and set the second drive -- the one that's going to get XP -- as the damn master to do the install. It will take over the entire drive and it won't accept anything but ntfs, which Linux doesn't write to. (At least as of the docs I've been googling.) Then after the install I switch the XP disk back to slave and twiddle Grub to make it work. And create a FAT32 partition on my Linux drive so that I can share files between the two. Can I shrink an existing ext3 partition to make room for the FAT32 partition? What a pain in the ass. === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #160,935 by deSitter 6/21/04 10:59:38 PM Reply	Re: They never make it easy, do they Yes, I managed to do this on a machine that had an old BIOS, requiring 0->1 sector translation. It had no Windows partition at all, 40g hard disk with /, /usr, and swap. I made /usr part of / and installed sector translation, then used Linux to move over an entire Windows 98 setup from a completely different machine. It was very complex but the end result was seamless Win98/Linux bootage from LILO. (It's hilarious to watch Windows 98 rebuild itself when grafted whole onto another machine. In the end it runs just fine.) -drl
Post #160,937 by drewk 6/21/04 11:03:20 PM Reply	XP is different... the filesystem takes over the whole drive === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #160,939 by deSitter 6/21/04 11:09:36 PM 6/21/04 11:11:53 PM Reply	Not if you graft it on You could even graft it down onto FAT32 from NTFS. It will start in partial safe-mode and start reinstalling low-level devices, and could at some point ask for the CD. So just make an image and come up with a way to unpack the image onto hda1 from Linux. I'll bet it's easier with XP, because the boot process is saner and you can boot from the CD and do a repair. Just make the ERD that XP needs. That'll restore Windows booting, then you start Linux from a bootdisk and re-establish Linux booting with Windows as a secondary boot option. Both my laptops work this way. -drl Edited by deSitter June 21, 2004, 11:11:53 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #160,957 by pwhysall 6/22/04 1:48:49 AM Reply	Not entirely true It doesn't have to use the entire drive and you can use FAT32 if you like. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #160,958 by drewk 6/22/04 1:50:36 AM Reply	And all the stuff I find online says not to do that Dozens of sites, people complaining that XP won't run properly on fat32. === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #160,961 by pwhysall 6/22/04 2:05:48 AM Reply	Sure it does. Trust me. I'm an MCP. While it's true that it's better to run on NTFS for reasons of filesystem security and robustness, Windows XP will run happily on FAT32. Best Practice would be to run XP on an NTFS partition with the disk converted to dynamic; however, Best Practice and reality often collide. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #160,983 by Yendor 6/22/04 8:58:34 AM Reply	rofl Trust me. I'm an MCP. Yeah, right. ;-) -YendorMike [link\|http://www.hope-ride.org/\|http://www.hope-ride.org/]
Post #160,984 by drewk 6/22/04 8:59:34 AM Reply	Okay Mr. MCP Man How would you do what I'm about to do? Two physical drives. (Actually I've got a third I could drop in if I bother to get another cable.) Linux already on hda. hdb is currently mounted as /c (Yes, that's where Windows was going to go :-) I expect to have to reformat hdb to install some version of Windows. I'm not locked into the idea of XP, I'm just going to use it as a device driver for my scanner and printer. The Windows instance will never touch the net, so anything since W95 would work. Which would be easiest to install? Is it possible to install one without opening the case and switching the drives master/slave? And how would you do file sharing, a separate partition both OSs can read/write, or just let Linux read/write directly into the Windows partition? === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #160,992 by Another Scott 6/22/04 10:01:09 AM Reply	IANP... but I can't resist replying to a post by DK. If you're going to be swapping drives, I think the least painful way is to get something like the following: 1) [link\|http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-121-106&depa=1\|Kingwin KF-21-IPF] drive rack. $19.00 2) [link\|http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-121-153&depa=1\|Kingwin KF-21 extra tray]. $13.99 That will give you 2 drive trays and you can swap out one drive whenever you want to boot the other OS. Buy more trays if you want to add more drives (that you use sequentially). Such trays will also work in their external ATA to USB box. (Make sure you get the right variety if you're considering that option.) It's a lot less of a hassle than fighting with cables and jumpers, and the fan helps keep the drive cool. Cheers, Scott.
Post #160,994 by drewk 6/22/04 10:04:38 AM Reply	The swap is something I should only have to do once Well, and then swapping back after the install. But once it's all installed I want to just use Grub to boot into one or the other. If I can't do that I'll find another way. === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #161,037 by pwhysall 6/22/04 1:10:58 PM Reply	More details, sai - and some answers. 1. What's on the second hard disk at the moment? Partitioned? Formatted? 2. If it's NTFS or FAT32, you won't have to reformat it, as long as there's sufficient space. 3. You MAY have to physically swap the hard disks around. Hell, suck it and see. The XP installer commits you to nothing before the "choosing a partition to install on" stage. 4. Remember, you don't have to install to drive C: 5. The quickest and easiest way of having a partition that's read/write from both OSes is to use FAT32. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #161,056 by drewk 6/22/04 2:21:45 PM Reply	How do I launch the installer 1. What's on the second hard disk at the moment? Partitioned? Formatted? Formatted ext3. Nothing on it. One partition. 2. If it's NTFS or FAT32, you won't have to reformat it, as long as there's sufficient space. I'd like to do part of it (most of it actually) as fat32 for data storage. Only 2G or so for the OS. If XP takes over the whole drive I may go with W95 instead. 3. You MAY have to physically swap the hard disks around. Hell, suck it and see. The XP installer commits you to nothing before the "choosing a partition to install on" stage. Reboot the system and boot to cd, then it will ask what partition to go to. Okay. Will try. 4. Remember, you don't have to install to drive C: I'll have to see that the installer says. I don't really care what it calls the drives. 5. The quickest and easiest way of having a partition that's read/write from both OSes is to use FAT32. Except, as I said, for the warnings I've seen against doing that with XP. === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #161,070 by pwhysall 6/22/04 3:34:06 PM Reply	Re: How do I launch the installer 1. What's on the second hard disk at the moment? Partitioned? Formatted? Formatted ext3. Nothing on it. One partition. Good luck installing XP onto that without reformatting or partitioning :-D 2. If it's NTFS or FAT32, you won't have to reformat it, as long as there's sufficient space. I'd like to do part of it (most of it actually) as fat32 for data storage. Only 2G or so for the OS. If XP takes over the whole drive I may go with W95 instead. 2G is insufficient for XP. Chop it up; make a 4G partition for the OS, and sort the rest out later. XP doesn't "take over" the whole disk; it presents you with the same disk partition tool we all grew to love with Windows NT. 3. You MAY have to physically swap the hard disks around. Hell, suck it and see. The XP installer commits you to nothing before the "choosing a partition to install on" stage. Reboot the system and boot to cd, then it will ask what partition to go to. Okay. Will try. Good. Don't be all pointy haired on me, now. 4. Remember, you don't have to install to drive C: I'll have to see that the installer says. I don't really care what it calls the drives. OK, so do that then. 5. The quickest and easiest way of having a partition that's read/write from both OSes is to use FAT32. Except, as I said, for the warnings I've seen against doing that with XP. There's nothing intrinsic about XP that means it won't work with FAT32. You don't get some benefits of NTFS (security, compression, encryption), but IT WILL WORK. Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001. No shit. ;) Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #161,074 by drewk 6/22/04 3:39:37 PM Reply	This isn't stupidity, it's willfull ignorance I don't want to stay up-to-date with Windows. I'm only installing it to use to drive my peripherals until someone is done reverse-engineering the Linux drivers. Once it's installed, I expect to promptly forget everything I know about how I did it. Hell I don't even want to know how to install Linux. I just want it to keep working. === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #161,134 by Ashton 6/22/04 10:17:01 PM Reply	Someone who understands.
Post #161,149 by deSitter 6/22/04 11:56:17 PM Reply	Re: This isn't stupidity, it's willfull ignorance Did you try my program? It works. -drl

Welcome to IWETHEY!