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Home > Archive > Linux Debian support > September 2005 > help migrating to dual boot
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help migrating to dual boot
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| Joe Fox 2005-09-03, 2:46 am |
| I'm currently on win98se and I want to migrate to a dual boot arrangement
with Debian and windows on the one machine.
Can anyone point me to some help pages / walkthroughs / examples of other
people's experience?
I tried to create this arrangement once, but ended up having to format the
whole 20gb and spend days getting windows back to where it started.
or is the problem simply that partition magic's 'boot magic' was handling
the selection of the partition to boot into and when Debian was installed,
it's 'grub' utility took over that task? Are the two not compatible?
would it be better to have partition magic create the linux partition, then
NOT use 'boot magic'...instead letting Debian and 'grub' handle it?
I want to try this again, but I don't want to end up re-installing windows
Etc again... (it takes too long when you can't backup a whole drive)
Thanks for any help.
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| Joe Fox wrote:
> I'm currently on win98se and I want to migrate to a dual boot arrangement
> with Debian and windows on the one machine.
>
> Can anyone point me to some help pages / walkthroughs / examples of other
> people's experience?
>
> I tried to create this arrangement once, but ended up having to format the
> whole 20gb and spend days getting windows back to where it started.
>
> or is the problem simply that partition magic's 'boot magic' was handling
> the selection of the partition to boot into and when Debian was installed,
> it's 'grub' utility took over that task? Are the two not compatible?
>
> would it be better to have partition magic create the linux partition,
> then NOT use 'boot magic'...instead letting Debian and 'grub' handle it?
>
> I want to try this again, but I don't want to end up re-installing windows
> Etc again... (it takes too long when you can't backup a whole drive)
>
> Thanks for any help.
You could use Partition Magic to squeeze down your windows and then install
Debian. I don't know whether Debian will automatically add windows to the
grub menu, but it's easy to add it yourself. I use grub to boot any of
several operating systems. My win98 entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst looks
like this:
title Windows 98se
hide (hd0,3)
unhide (hd0,0)
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
savedefault
chainloader +1
Win98 is on the first partition of the first HD (hd0,0). The hide/unhide
stuff is necessary because win2k is installed on the fourth partition
(hd0,3). If you have only one doze flavor installed, skip the hide/unhide.
Change partition numbers to match your layout.
If I back up my drive prior to fiddling with the partition table, everything
goes smoothly. If I don't back up, disaster strikes. Every time.
Roby
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| nuthead 2005-09-11, 7:29 pm |
| quote:
I don't know whether Debian will automatically add windows to the
grub menu,
It will. Or at least, it always has for me. What I've found that works the best for me is to use Partition Magic to resize the C:\ drive ( I always recommend defragging your C:\ drive before running Partition Magic), and just leave the new space as "unallocated". Then run the debian setup and have it use that unallocated space to install debian to. That way, your C:\ remains intact and if for some strange reason the debian install screws up, you can boot your pc with a win98 start-up and do a fdisk /mbr and still have your windows info.
Remember, your swap partition should be at least equal to the amount of RAM you have installed, so consider that when you determine how much space to free up for debian.
Hope this helps!;) |
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