My laptop is returning home tomorrow after a week in the shop for a bad
hard drive. It is a 4-month old Compaq Presario with 256Mb RAM and a 20Gb
hard drive -- plenty of room for XP and Linux to coexist while I migrate to
Linux. That having been said, how do I begin?
(I have the three Mandrake 8.2 ISO CD's I created from downloads and once
successfully installed on the above-mentioned laptop. However, the lesson I
learned is that I can't be too cavalier with carving up my laptop.)
From what I have read on this list over the past couple of weeks, I am
considering the following approach:
1. Start with XP loaded and install Partition Magic. (I would partition the
hard drive before installing anything if I could, but I only have a
'recovery' CD that drops an image onto the hard drive without regard for
how I may want to partition it.)
2. Carve the hard drive into at least four volumes:
a: Windows XP operating system and applications (leave as NTFS
file system)
b: Linux operating system and applications (ext2 file system)
c: Linux swap
d: Data (FAT 32 file system so I can access from both OS')
3. Install Mandrake 8.2
4. Install XP applications
5. Restore data files
My questions are these:
- Is my approach sound?
- Will my drive partitioning work?
- How large should the drive volumes be to maximize utility? (I know I can
resize at will with Partition Magic, but I'd like to leave it stable for a
while.)
- Is there anything I am neglecting to take into consideration?
Many thanks in advance for your input.
Steven Kopischke
Green Bay, WI USA
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Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
