>From debian parisc on Wednesday, 2003-01-22 at 14:51:35 +0000: > Hello, > > although I've been reading this list for a few months now I haven't > actually installed in on a i386 pc (although I have installed it on a HP > Unix server - well smooth). I'm now read to install on my home PC, to > ensure that my wife doesn't divorce me I need to make sure that I get it > right. I'm going to resize my windows98 partition to free up 10GB on which > I will put 2 logical partition of 5GB each (i'll probably run stable on one > and testing on the other or maybe woody and mandrake). I'm going to use > Partition Magic 7 to resize it. Having looked at the instructions on > Powerquest's site it says this > > "IMPORTANT! In most cases, the Windows partition and the Linux Ext2 > partition must start below the 8 GB boundary to be bootable. However, if > your system supports INT13 extensions, then Windows XP/2000, Windows Me, > and some Linux distributions can boot beyond the 8 GB boundary. Check your > system documentation to determine if your machine supports INT13 > extensions." > > Does that mean that if my Linux partitions are first I can't boot > windows98? or if I put Windows first (10GB) I won't be able to boot linux? > and what is INT13? > > regards > > Leo
If you need some encouragement, I can assure you that I have a computer that was new in 1998, for which I bought a new 60GB disk in 2001, that has Windows 98 on the first partition, and various flavors of Linux on the other 5-6 partitions. My boot loader is grub, it is installed in the Master Boot Record, and I boot from any partition I like, whether it is above 8GB or below. A modern version of LILO should be just as good. My BIOS is an AMI BIOS dated 1996, but that does not appear to be a problem. Except in rare cases with really old hardware (older than mine), and maybe really old software, the 8GB and other limits are a myth. My suggestion is that you go ahead and do your install as you had planned. Usually I use Mandrake for first-time installs on Windows-only computers, because they have excellent re-partitioning tools, but if you are familiar with Partition Magic, that should be just as good. Conrad -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
