Dual Boot XP and Fedora Core 2 (64 bit)

[fletchjp 0]

I have a new computer with an Athlon 64 bit CPU. It has come with Windows XP (now SP2). I want to split the hard disk and dual boot with Fedora Core 2 (64 bit version).

 

Has anyone experience of doing this and any comments on what to watch for?

 

Thanks

 

John

 

[danleff 0]

Don't have a an Athlon 64 bit CPU, wish I did. But, note the other threads under the "related threads" below. This will give you some ideas on what to watch for. I suggest that you make a small fat32 partition on the drive keeping the NTFS partition away from the Linux partition on the hard drive. There have been issues with the Fedora partitioning utility and NTFS partitions. Or, set up your partition(s) for Fedora ahead of time and install to the previously formatted partition(s) that you made for Fedora. Especially if you have a system that came pre-loaded with Windows, and you do not have the XP install cd.

 

Also make sure that you defrag the XP partition before installing Fedora, to assure that there is no data on the end of the NTFS partition.

[fletchjp 0]

Thanks for that, Danleff

 

One of the messages listed was started by myself back in August when I had problems adding Windows XP to my dual boot (Windows ME and Fedora 1) system. That is one of the reasons I am cautious now.

 

I do need to partition the disk, which came new with NTFS and one big partition. Thanks for the hint to defrag it first. I shall then look at it with Partition Magic 8.0, I think.

 

At the moment I have coLinux ( http://www.colinux.org/ )running using Fedora Core 2. I find this more convenient than dual boot these days unless I need the raw power of the computer, as the cpu is shared between windows and Linux.

 

Thanks again

 

John