Dual Boot help

[Bonster]

Trying to set up a dual boot on my PC.

Knoppix 3.7 and WinXp

[both install on different HD]

i do not want to lose any data on WinXp in the process. Plz help me.


Me=Win2Linux noob =)

[CrashedAgain]

What have you done so far?

Basically all you have to do is install Linux on the second HD & either put the bootloader (lilo) on the MBR of the first HD (since it will be the one set to boot by the bios) or set up XP's bootloader to give the choice to boot Linux. You should partition the HD first to provide for a space for the Linux O/S, a swap file (about 500 Meg) and a vfat (fat32) partition for data shared by both XP & Linux. Use QTparted to partition & format the HD, the Knoppix installer should install lilo OK. If you want to use the XP bootloader instead check the docs. It can be done but I dont know how, I don't use XP.

[Harry Kuhman]

i do not want to lose any data on WinXp in the process.
Dual boot systems can certainly be set up. I suggest looking at XOSL (http://www2.arnes.si/~fkomar/xosl.org/) or Smart Boot Manager (http://btmgr.webframe.org/), with my preference being XOSL. But you say "i do not want to lose any data on WinXp in the process". It's not clear if you think there are actually people who do this wanting to experience data loss, but my advice from all of the things I see going wrong with hard disk installs would be to not even consider doing this unless you have good backups.

[Bonster]

To CrashedAgain:
Linux[HD1] is already installed and so is Winxp[HD2]. I don't want to reinstall just need an appz
or something way to have a dual boot menu when i start up.



To Harry Kuhman:
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Primary HD: Knoppix 3.7
Slave HD: Winxp
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Since Knoppix is my primary HD.
I was wondering if i have to run the bootloader appz on the knoppix HD. Or both HD?
- ! i might consider reformating my WinXP HD in the future that why im asking this question.