Very Computer

Hello:

I just bought a new computer which has Win95 pre-installed.
At this point, the entire hard drive is dedicated to Win95.  I
would like to install Linux.  Installing Linux seems straight forward,
with the exception of creating a partition from within Win95.  Does
anyone know how to partition the drive in a non-destructive way from
within Win95, or do I need the Win95 diskettes?  In other words, is
there a way to partition a Win95 drive without having the Win95 diskettes?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

However, there are a number of third party utilities that will let you resize
existing disk partitions.  I've used a program called "Partition Magic" to
succesfully trim down the size of existing Win95 partitions, without losing
data, in order to install Linux in the newly-freed space.

All you need to do is to reduce the size of the Win95 partitions.  Linux
version of fdisk will be used to create Linux partitions.

One word of warning, though.  ***PUT ALL YOUR LINUX PARTITIONS AFTER WIN95
PARTITIONS*** on the hard drive.  If your free space is sandwiched between
existing Win95 partitions, Linux fdisk will be able to partition the free
space for Linux, however, the resulting disk partition table will cause the
Win95 version of fdisk to hang, or *out completely.  Win95 will still
boot, and run, just fine, but any attempt to twiddle the partition from Win95
will lock the system up.  It took me three frigging hours to unscramble my
partition table enough in order to make it readable by all OSes.

P.S.  You might as well take this opportunity to learn how to reinstall Win95.
Trust me, you'll need to have such an experience at some point in the future!

--
Sam Varshavchik  (E-mail address is mrsam "at" geocities.com, to avoid
                  being spammed )
Your friendly Undernet #sci-fi operator.

: Hello:
:
: I just bought a new computer which has Win95 pre-installed.
: At this point, the entire hard drive is dedicated to Win95.  I
: would like to install Linux.  Installing Linux seems straight forward,
: with the exception of creating a partition from within Win95.  Does
: anyone know how to partition the drive in a non-destructive way from
: within Win95, or do I need the Win95 diskettes?  In other words, is
: there a way to partition a Win95 drive without having the Win95 diskettes?

Well, if you defrag the drive and use "fips.exe" you can shrink your win95
partition down, though I am nervous about anthing which alters an entire
partition--it is recommended to do a backup first.  If you don't mind re-
installing win95 if something goes wrong, don't worry about it.  A program
called partition magic does some nice work, it can shrink, grow, and move
partitions, and also works on HPFS.

Evan Jeffrey

And, whose boot manager, winnt or linux, would show up when I reboot the
system?

Thanks in advance,

ZiZi

ps: I need keep win95 because my NEC 660i laser printer doesn't have NT
driver.

Although LILO, the Linux boot manager, is capable of booting Win95, I don't
know if it can boot NT.  Therefore, I suggest that you keep the NT boot
manager on the hard drive, and create a couple of Linux boot floppies (so you
have some to spare in case one of them goes bad) to boot Linux.  You can
install the Linux boot manager onto a floppy, and whenever you want to boot
Linux, just stick in the floppy long enough for the boot manager to load (and
it will then proceed to load Linux off the hard drive).

--
Sam Varshavchik  (E-mail address is mrsam "at" geocities.com, to avoid
                  being spammed )
Your friendly Undernet #sci-fi operator.

--

http://www.geocities.com/+seymour/

"We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile. We are the
Borg."

Quote:>Therefore, I suggest that you keep the NT boot
>manager on the hard drive, and create a couple of Linux boot floppies (so you
>have some to spare in case one of them goes bad) to boot Linux.  You can
>install the Linux boot manager onto a floppy, and whenever you want to boot
>Linux, just stick in the floppy long enough for the boot manager to load (and
>it will then proceed to load Linux off the hard drive).

Yun
--

Dept. of Comp. Sci., Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742