I need help w/ my duel boot config. I'm scared that if I jump right into it, I might screw up my computer. Can anyone help me.

I plan on running:
-Windows Xp
-Redhat9

I need the easiest way to do the set up. I'm not sure how to set up partitions, and if possible not clear my hard drive.

If you have it loaded with just Windows XP then I would recommend getting Partition Magic to set up your partitions.

The ideal situation is to have two physical hard drives. You could then set up the primary operating system on one and the secondary on the other. Do one hard drive at a time setting them initially to master. When both are done then set the secondary O/S to slave then install both.

Now you can modify the boot config to display both O/S's

If you have one hard drive then install Windows XP on that drive using the entire drive. Now install PM and resize the drive. If you have a 20 Gig or bigger I suggest you split it 50/50.

Once you resize the drive then set your boot to boot from the CD and then install your Redhat install disk. When it asks make sure you install to the unpartitioned space and leave hd0 with Window alone.

When redhat installs it will ask about installing the boot config. What I did was set it to boot from a floppy drive. After the installation I booted into linux with the floppy and then went into the system boot config and reset it
manually to boot from the hard drive and then set it to show choices of Windows first then Linux with a 30 second choice window or it booted to the default windows drive etc...

This is a quick and dirty. I did this with SuSE and when I adjusted the linux boot to boot with its Grub boot loader it let me set Windows linux, etc ...I was a little nervious but when I rebooted the choices came up and I test both O/S's. It worked great and I did it with my Laptop as well with no problems...

Have a Linux Issue?
Do you have a Linux Question?

Linux Home: Linux System Administration Hints and Tips