A few quick newbie questions...

[James McKenzie]

Jonathan Berry wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 08:20:43 -0500, Erik Hemdal <ehemdal at townisp.com> wrote:
> [snip]
> 
> Yes, use this approach if you are doing a fresh install, or don't mind
> reformatting and reintstalling.  You can do it in other orders, but
> this offers the least trouble if you have the choice.  If you have
> already installed Linux and have a partition that you can install
> Windows on, you can install Windows and then boot to the rescue CD to
> reinstall GRUB.  There are plenty of examples of this on the web and
> in the archives.  Again, if you have the choice, do it in the order
> you specified.
> 
I recommend rebuilding the system, if you can do this.  Backup your data 
and remove everything else.  Install XP first, and convert to NTFS if 
you desire.  I recommend adding a partition for moving data between XP 
and Linux.  Of course, this should be a FAT/FAT32 partition.
> 
>>a system which currently contains XP, reduce the size of your NTFS partition
>>to make space for Fedora.  Do not alter the small FAT partition which XP has
> 
> 
> To resize the NTFS partition, you will need to use Partition Magic
> (not free) or qtparted (free).  You can use Knoppix or System Rescue
> CD to get qtparted (Google the names to find the sites).  I would also
> recommend running scandisk and defrag in Windows to get files toward
> the front of the drive to make resizing less dangerous (always a
> chance of messing something up, though it has worked for me).   You
> can also turn off the swap file, reboot, and defrag before you resize
> as the swapfile is usually located somewhere near the end of the drive
> (a huge green (unmovable) block in the defrag tool).
>
As always, before using any partition altering software product, backup 
your system.
> 
>>created (XP needs a FAT partition to work).  Leave the freed up space
> 
> 
> Uhh, I'm not sure what this "small FAT partition" is that Erik talks
> of, but my laptop has XP and FC3 on it with no FAT partitions at all. 
> WinXP does not need FAT, if anything, it needs NTFS.  Now, I've only
> used XP Pro, so perhaps XP Home needs a FAT partition, but I've never
> heard that and it doesn't make much sense to me.
> 
XP does not need to have FAT anywhere on a system. I have an older 
system with Win2K installed on it and all of the drive is NTFS.  Linux 
is gaining the ability to read and write NTFS.  I don't know if this is 
a good thing or not.  Only time will tell.
-- 
James McKenzie
With assistance, Now running 2.6.11rc3, Software Suspend 2
and ibm-acpi .1
Need a home for my .rpm