Linux Guide/Installing (dual-boot)

Dual-boot systems - Run Linux and MS Windows
You need to run both MS Windows and Linux on your PC and you have only one hard disk. Follow these steps:

Windows needs the first partition on systems where grub is being used as a bootloader. (Note that this requirement does not apply to systems that use lilo). It is strongly advised to put windows in the first partition (/dev/hda1 or /dev/sda1) otherwise you will have to do hide and unhide of partitions during grub configuration. If you have Linux on first partition then you have to move it. Golden rule: Put windows in first partition and Linux can run easily off any other partition

Notation: If using SCSI or SATA drives use 'sda' and for IDE drives use 'hda'

Open X-terminal console and mkdir /hda1 mkdir /new mount /dev/hda1 /hda1 mount /dev/hda2 /new cd /hda1 Use tar and not cp -r. tar cpf -. | tar xpvf - -C /new Edit /new/etc/fstab and /new/grub/menu.lst as appropriate
 * 1) Download the partition tool LiveGParted from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php and boot the LiveGparted CD-ROM
 * 2) Resize the MS Windows partition and then create new partition(s) for Linux.
 * 3) If Windows is NOT in first partition and if Linux is already existing on first partition then move the Linux from partition 1 to another partition like 2.
 * 1) Create primary partition 1 FAT32 for MS WindowsXP, Windows wants the first disk.
 * 2) If you do not have Windows already in partition 1, install Windows XP on partition 1 (format to NTFS)
 * 3) Boot Linux CD-ROM and install the grub and in menu.lst you do not need to do unhide and hide since MS-Windows is in first partition.

Troubleshooting: Grub not finding file or disk or partition. If the disk is not recognised inside the grub, then that partition is marked as "hidden". Also when you do 'find /boot/grub/stage1' it does not find the file. So you do this inside grub: Note: hd0 is /dev/hda1 and partition 1 is 0 in grub commands. grub> unhide (hd0,0) grub> find /boot/grub/stage1 (Now this will succeed and show some output)

Dual-boot references:
 * GParted LiveCD http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
 * GParted Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GParted
 * GRUB page: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/
 * Grub Howto: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+Win9x+Grub-HOWTO/index.html
 * Google Grub: Grub Topics
 * Wiki Grub: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_GRUB
 * Wiki Lilo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LILO_(boot_loader)
 * Virtualization: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization