win2k and linux

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http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b%251h6.129816%24Z2.1670246%40nnrp1.uunet.ca

Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.hardware
Date: 2001-02-09 18:49:54 PST

> i am going to install rh6.1  and win2k .
> Which one should i install first i have 20 gb.
>
> I can mange to install win98 and linux and it works
> perfectly fine.

You'll get this around Saturday morning. If you have time during the week about half a day, preferably the afternoon half ) then proceed. Otherwise wait till the weekend. The switching from one os to another can get a little confusing.

Leave the MBR alone from lilo's point of view , and keep it in the linux boot partition. leave the dos mbr in place.
Make a separate boot partition for each of the microsoft OS'es ( that way they will have less opportunity to muck up other installations ).
Make sure the boot partitions of the OSes are within the 1024 cylinder limit.
When installing 98 or nt4 or win2k , make sure that the appropriate boot partition is marked bootable AND active.
Win98's C: drive must not be in the same partition as win2k's C: drive , or you'll have hell to pay for down the road. Best way is for the first MS reable partition to be NTFS ( win98 can't natively read it ) , and the second MS readable to be fat32 with win98 on it. Win2k will be able to read win98's boot partition, but it will not be "C:" it will be something else . ( F in my case ) .
Have a battle plan :) .

For example :

I have Linix, Win2k and win98 on the same hdd ( 27GB maxtor ) , and they behave ;) .

Ok, win98 may not be one's choice of "stable" os, but gaming under win2k is pretty bad unless one plays one of the mainstream games like quake , unreal etc. and I'd much rather fly an F-15 simulator or something.With that out of the way, here's how I set up my disk : ( I used partition magic 5 to lay out the partitions ) Hint : use the 2 "rescue floppies" .That's the same thing, only, works in dos .

hda1 to hda4 are the primary partitions. Any one of these can be an extended partition , ie, one that can contains sub-partitions I think one can have about 64 partitions on a single ide hard disk ( 1-63 ) . The PC architecture ( more precisely the BIOS ) is limited to booting one of 4 partitions in the partition table ( those 4 are the primary ( or first ) partitions. It will boot the partition that is marked "active" .

Here's the layout.

active        hda1    10 MB    ext2 /boot   ( contains the kernel image )
bootable   hda2    2gig       ntfs5  win2k partition
bootable  hda3     2gig       fat32    win98 partitoin
extended  hda4     4010GB to 27 gig  - my extended partition

Now inside the extended partition:

hda5      2GB       fat32    (for windows )
hda6      200mb  ext2 / (root )
hda7      128mb  swap
hda8      128mb  swap
hda9      100MB  ext2 /var
hda10    2GB      ext2 /usr
hda11    500MB ext2 /root ( root user's home )
hda12    500MB  ext2 /tmp
hda13    6GB        fat32  ( for the games )
hda14    4GB        fat32   ( data exchange MS to linux and vice versa )
hda15    2GB        ext2     /home
hda16    4gig      ext2      /usr/local/datastore

Since hda1 is marked as active, the MBR code will boot it always, and guess what sits in the first 512k of that partition…LILO. So I see lilo first now, which allows me to boot one of several linux kernels, or win98 or NT5 ( win2k) .

If I wanted to put ,say, WinME ( thank you, but I'd rather not ) , I would load up fdisk or partition magic , and set the win98 or the win2k partition as active , reboot , and proceed with the install install. As far as the OS in question is concerned, it sees a primary active partition, and happily parks itself there .

Once the nauseating cycle of reboots is completed, in goes the partition magic disk, and I set the linux boot partition to active , taking care to "unhide" the other two primaries. This will avoid those "NTOSKRNL.exe not found" messages that sometimes prevents win2k from booting .( Why ? )

Use partition magic to make the partitions , but with one exception : the win2k partition should be fat32 for installation. ( if your win2k cd is not bootable, use the win98 floppy to boot and access the cdrom. )
mark the win2k as active, reboot and install win2k
```
If you don't install win98 ,skip to step 6.
```
hide the win2k partition ( don;t convert it yet ) .
mark the second 2 gig as active, reboot and install win98.
mark the win2k as active,and "unhide" the win98 partitoin.
boot into win2k, and convert to ntfs. ( you will have to reboot for it to convert the file system.)
Reboot and come up with the Partiton Magic disks.
mark the first partition ( ext2 /boot ) as active, and make sure to "unhide" win2k partition.
If you had put in win98 , unhide the win98 partition.
Reboot and start the linux install
When it asks you where to put lilo, put into the first sector or /boot .
Provide appropriate names for the other boot options ( the installation will id ntfs as HPFS and win98 as dos ).

You're set.

From the above you may be thinking "that's complicated". But it is not, when you understand the underlying processes and ideas , like the co-relation between dos volume labels ( C: , D: etc.. ) and the partitions and their attributes .

A warning about win2k: Make sure your bios is compatable with win2k . I had a "minor" problem which had to do with the fact that my hdd geomertry had more than 1024 cylinders ( hdd > 8034MB ) , even in LBA.

Symptoms:

NT4 will fail to completely boot the multiprocessor kernel for the installation .
Win2k will complete the install, but will generate "STOP" errors ( among other IRQ_LEVEL_ errors in between random reboots) after the final reboot .
But win98 and linux work fine.

In my case, a bios _downgrade_ fixed it.

Another warning about win2k : Once installed , the OS takes up 1 gig of space ( well 996MB is what 's used on my win2k boot partition). So atleast 2 gig is necessary . Also , it is best _not_ to grab a huge 5 or 10 gig partition as the win2k boot partition. In the event of an unexpected reboot , you will have to check all the "dirty" partitions… Usually after a boot, the only partition that is "dirty" is just the boot partition, so the file system check should take much lesser time if it is small. Also , when win2k decides to go south, it will take only itself down, and keep your data safe ( which is preferably on another partition ) .

hope I have not scared/bored you off.

joseph lascaux.ca