Formatting 2 partitions on a Hard Drive -- Win 95B and Linux

[aattura]

Can it be done? I'm installing a 20G HD and want to create 2 partitions. One will have Win 95B OS -- the other will have Linux OS.

Can I do this with just the FDISK command? Would I be better off using PartitionMagic??

Also -- Should both partitions have a boot sector?

[mairving]

You can do this with Fdisk. PartitionMagic is a great program but not needed that much. Linux also will probably not need 10GB's unless you plan on a lot of games there. What I would do is to partition your hard drive something like this:

• 1st partition - 12-15GB's, formatted FAT32
  
• 2nd partition - 5-8GB's, unformatted.
  

Install Windows on the first partition first. Once that is up and running, install Linux on the second partition. It would be better if Linux was on a primary & not extended partition but it will work on either. Post back here if you need any help.

[aattura]

Will try that. Win 98SE is on my primary Hard Drive and that's about 50% full already. So I guess I better stick with installing it on the 2nd HD.

[Xayd]

The only thing you must do if you install on a second hard drive that co-exists in Windows is don't give Linux the whole drive. I fought with this one for days a few weeks back, and found out after the fact that Windows cries, moans, and groans if it sees a drive that it can't play with. So, if the second drive will be dedicated to Linux only, leave a 10 meg partition or so at the end of it that's formatted FAT16 or FAT32 to shut Win9x up about it .

Xayd

[mairving]

Xayd, I have a system with a second hard drive of 3.1GB. I have a 16GB drive as the master. I have Windows installed on the first 14GB's or so. Linux is installed on the last 2 and all of the other drive. I have also set it up with Windows all on the master & Linux all on the slave with no problems. The drive is just invisible to Windows. How is it set up, as a primary partition?

[Edited by mairving on 02-06-2001 at 08:06 PM]

[Xayd]

I had the issue with Red Hat 6.1 on my old 4 gig Seagate. It was formatted FAT32 originally, used for Win9x/2000 backups, but as soon as I removed the FAT32 partition and gave Linux the whole drive, Win9x would crap out as soon as explorer loaded, it didn't like a drive that it saw previously not being there, apparently.

When I split off 10 megs on the end of it and formatted it FAT16, everything was fine.

Xayd

[mairving]

I am not sure if Windows ever got a good look at mine. I don't think I ever formatting it. I might play around with mine to see if I can duplicate your error.