HOW TO DUAL BOOT XP AND LINUX ON THE SAME HARD DISK

Published August 4, 2005 | By ttpn

This step by step guide is meant to show you how to install Linux (Fedora Core 2) on one hard drive, on top of an existing Windows machine, and using native boot loaders for each OS (i.e. the ntloader for Windows), grub for booting Linux.

This 21 step guide details each step necessary to perform the a dual boot of Windows XP and Linux, and uses the QtParted tool in the SystemRescueCD to resize NTFS (QtParted is a free tool for resizing NTFS partitions).

There are a number of advantages to using this approach. First, it keeps both systems separated on a single hard drive, thus allowing you to upgrade either system without overwriting the other boot loader image.

Second, because this approach doesn’t require a floppy and only requires one hard drive, it is well suited for laptops. That is important since many laptops do not have a floppy and are available with only one hard drive.

Third, this approach allows you to install Linux on top of an existing Windows XP machine without having to reinstall Windows XP, and without losing any existing files.

Fourth, it uses only free software. And Fifth, this procedure has been successfully completed by many users with no prior experience in dual booting.

The steps in this guide do not originate with me. I’ve pieced them together from XP and other programmers’ forums. But this is the first time it’s all been put together in one place.

For this procedure you will need the following resources:

1, An iso distribution of SystemRescueCD-x86-0.2.15 .

Click download.

Download the version where you see the cursor in the screenshot.

2. An iso distribution of Linux. For example Fedora Core Disks 1-4:

Click each one in turn and save them to the same folder. They’re big downloads and the speed isn’t great, so it’ll take you several hours to complete the download.

AFTER A TYPICAL WINDOWS XP INSTALL

This write up assumes you are installing Linux after a typical Windows XP install. For example, you have a home PC setup with Windows already installed, when you purchased it. Such a system has Windows XP on one large NTFS formatted partition on your hard disk, drive (C:), and that leaves no room for any other operating system. ;(

This guide is an attempt to provide a step by step approach to help you setup a dual-booting Windows and Linux PC without having to remove windows, reformat your hard drive, or lose any data.

1. BEFORE YOU START, CHECK DISKSPACE AND VERIFY THAT YOU HAVE A SINGLE WINDOWS PARTITION

Before your start, check that you have enough disk space (I recommend at least 9GB).
Next verify that you have a typical windows installation, i.e. one that has only one partition, Disk 0 (C:), as shown below

Assuming your hard drive is presently configured as a single C:\ partition as described above continue with the next step. If you do not have a single C:\ partition, find another installation guide that better matches your present system, or modify the steps to suit your needs.

2. DEFRAG WINDOWS

To begin, it’s a good idea to defragment your existing Windows partition. This condenses the existing files which in turn makes more room for Linux (although this step may not be necessary since some partition managers automatically do this for you, lets do it just in case). To begin defragmenting follow the steps shown below.

3. BOOT SYSTEM RESCUE CD

Next, you are going to boot using the SystemRescueCD so you can resize your existing Windows partition. SystemRescueCD has a tool for doing this that will allow you to shrink your NTFS partition (the C: drive). Shrinking your C: drive will make Windows play nicely, so you can install other OSs on your computor, such as Linux (or some other OS(s)).

4. CREATE A SMALL FAT PRIMARY PARTITION

Create a small fat32 partition for passing the boot image data from your Linux /boot to Windows. This partition is handy because both Windows and Linux can read and write fat32. (Note: if you have enough disk space (say 20GB or more) you may wish to increase this size (below) from 700MB to several GBs. That way you can use this "small" fat partition for sharing cdroms while running either of your dual-boot OSs).

5. ADD AN EXTENDED PARTITION FOR ADDITIONAL OS

6. THE NEW PARTITION TABLE

Your new partition table should looks as follows:

7. SAVE THE NEW PARTITION TABLE

If your partition table looks like the one above, go ahead and save the changes as follows:

8. RESTART COMPUTER AND INSERT LINUX INSTALLATION CD

The following is a step by step guide for installing Fedora Core 2. Other installations would be similar.

9. TEST CD MEDIA

10. PERFORMING THE LINUX INSTALL

11. DISPLAY OF EXISTING PARTITIONS

12. CONFIGURE BOOT LOADER

Important, follow these steps.

13. ADVANCED BOOT LOADER CONFIGURATION

14. INTERNET CONFIGURATION
Continue with the remaining portion of the install, as usual. The following steps show my installation, yours may vary depending upon the kind of system you want to end up with.

15. MY FIREWALL CONFIGURATION

16. MY PACKAGE GROUP SELECTION

17. FINISH WITH THE LINUX INSTALLATION

18. MAKE COPY OF LINUX BOOT IMAGE AND COPY IT TO FAT PARTITION

19. COPY E:\fedora2.bin to C:\ and make it read-only

In the next few steps you will be starting the cmd line and copying the fedora2.bin (the Linux boot image) from the fat32 partition (E:) to the (C:), and then from the desktop you will make the boot image read-only. Then using notepad you will edit the C:\boot.ini file so the ntloader can find the Linux boot image. These steps are listed in the following two blue highlighted boxes.

20. EDIT BOOT.INI

The last step is to edit the C:\boot.ini file. The boot.ini file is used by the ntloader. It is used for prompting the user to choose an operating system, and also for booting the image of the OS that is chosen.