[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I want to dual boot windows XP and Debian. I've seen the guides, but
they all recommend that users have Windows XP installed first, and
then install Debian. This allows you to set it up with the default
Debian installation to use GRUB / etc. and dual boot.
However, I won't have a copy of Win XP for my new machine for a month
or two probably. I'd like to go ahead and install Debian, otherwise
the new computer will be a paperweight.
Is it possible to install Debian first and then Windows XP later on?
Can you change the Debian configurations? Is it not too difficult?
Impossible?
I'm installing on two separate hard drives, so partitions shouldn't be
a big problem I don't imagine. Debian on one, XP on the other.
There are a lot of ways to do this, the best one is to use something
like the approach suggested by Chris Lale, make sure you have an
alternative way of booting your debian install (you could even have
/boot on a USB pen drive) and a Knoppix CD handy.
It took me ages to get round to figuring out and trust dual booting,
(for a long while lilo or grub couldn't boot WinNT) since your using 2
physical drives you can setup linux on /hda and then when you set up Win
XP pull out the Linux drive and swap in the windows one, perform your
install as usual and then move the windows drive to hdb (actually better
hdc so you avoid 2 drives sharing a cable if you can) as windows doesn't
mind being moved after install (neither does linux with some care but
it's harder) then you can get Grub to boot windows for you, or use BIOS
to boot a different drive, independently.
Also while you have 2 drives you can stick a dedicated linux swap
partition on your windows drive and vice versa, effectively giving the
virtual memory for what ever OS you happen to be running a dedicated
spindle, for ease of moving things around leave your windows partition
as the first on the drive and get to know the ntfs tool on Knoppix, they
rock.
Good luck
--
Garrr, do your bit for global warming, become a pirate, you can "borrow" my
copy of Windows 95 if you want.
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