Ron Hunter-Duvar wrote:
As others have noted, it's definitely best to do Windows first, then Linux.
If for some reason you need to do Linux first, it's more complicated, but it
can be done. You just have to make sure you do the following:
1. When partitioning, allocate a primary partition, not an extended one, for
Windows. Otherwise, Windows won't boot (might not even install).
2. Make sure you mark the Windows partition as the active partition.
Otherwise Windows won't boot (but if you forget, you should be able to change
this afterward with a partitioning utility).
3. After you're done installing Windows, Linux will still be there, but won't
be bootable, because Windows overwrites the boot loader with it's own. So
then you use the first install disk to reinstall the Mandriva boot loader,
which lets you dual boot. I forget the details of how you fix it (rescue
mode?), but it's been discussed here before, and someone else can probably
fill you in.
One other problem you sometimes run into with installing Linux first is
that Windows may see the disk settings different then Linux. This can
results in overlapping partitions, and other strange problems. Linux
will use the Windows settings if Windows is installed first, but you can
have problems otherwise. From the fdisk man page:
Usually all goes well by default, and there are no problems if Linux is
the only system on the disk. However, if the disk has to be shared with
other operating systems, it is often a good idea to let an fdisk from
another operating system make at least one partition. When Linux boots
it looks at the partition table, and tries to deduce what (fake) geome-
try is required for good cooperation with other systems.
and
The DOS 6.x FORMAT command looks for some information in the first sec-
tor of the data area of the partition, and treats this information as
more reliable than the information in the partition table. DOS FORMAT
expects DOS FDISK to clear the first 512 bytes of the data area of a
partition whenever a size change occurs. DOS FORMAT will look at this
extra information even if the /U flag is given -- we consider this a
bug in DOS FORMAT and DOS FDISK.
The bottom line is that if you use cfdisk or fdisk to change the size
of a DOS partition table entry, then you must also use dd to zero the
first 512 bytes of that partition before using DOS FORMAT to format the
partition. For example, if you were using cfdisk to make a DOS parti-
tion table entry for /dev/hda1, then (after exiting fdisk or cfdisk and
rebooting Linux so that the partition table information is valid) you
would use the command "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1 bs=512 count=1" to
zero the first 512 bytes of the partition.
Mikkel
--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!
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