I have a relatively new PC with nvidia RAID drivers. I am told that in
order to dual boot it with Linux, I must re-install XP from the original
CD. The original CD contains the original install image of XP, not a
generic version.
Am I unable to re-install XP with a different configuration than the
original? Can somene ussgest a way that I can get around this?
I assume that you mean you have one of those rescue CD's instead of the
official Windows CD. Each manufacturer does theirs a little differently.
Usually if you do the partitioning yourself, the rescue CD will install on
the first *empty* NTFS partition. Some rescue CD's require this to be the
very first partition on the HD, and you may need to create a second
partition of about 5 gigs as a restore partition before it will install
correctly.
However, some rescue CD's will reformat the entire drive. If you have one
of these, you *may* be able to work around the problem by creating a
slipstreamed Windows CD. This is a Windows CD with SP2 included in the
install. A web search will turn up numerous instructions for making one
from your installed Windows XP. I have no idea if slipstreaming is kosher
under the Microsoft EULA, but no doubt someone here will say something
if it isn't.
I don't know how experienced you are with Linux so I'll play it safe and
assume you're new. Here are a few tips to help you get your HD set up:
Linux runs fine from an extended partition but ISTR that the boot
partition must be a primary. So, with Windows already taking up two
primary partitions, you can create a Linux boot partition and then an
extended partition to hold the rest of your linux partitions.
Microsoft keeps too many secrets to allow OSS developers to write reliable
NTFS drivers. There's no guarantee the reads are reliable, but Linux can
safely read NTFS with no risk of damage to the NTFS filesystem. However,
writing to NTFS is risky. If you want to be able to write to your Windows
partition directly from Linux, you may be able to persuade the rescue CD
to install to FAT32 simply by giving it an empty FAT32 partition instead
of NTFS.
Be sure to install Windows first. For all of Microsoft's supposed
technical abilities, and despite even having to source code to grub and
lilo, they still haven't figured out how not to wipe out competing
bootloaders.
If you need a good partitioning utility, try gparted. The URL is
<
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/>. You probably want the bootable LiveCD
image. It boots a mini-Linux and runs gparted under the X windowing
system. If X doesn't work with your graphics card, try selecting the VESA
driver.
Good luck!
