Very Computer

Hi,
        I'm going to need Windoze...  I just got hired to write plugins for 3dStudio
and I don't even know how it works...  So I need Windoze to play with it...  I
know Windows will complain if it's not in the first partition or something like
that...
Now, I'm very familiar with fdisk (linux), but can someone show me a good
partition table for linux&windows?

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *         1       751   6032376   83  Linux
/dev/hda2           752       784    265072+   5  Extended
/dev/hda5           752       784    265041   82  Linux swap

hda1 is /root
hda2 is /boot (i think?)
hda5 is swap

What should I add where?  Also, I not familiar with LILO and I don't have a
floppy disk drive...

Thanks for the help,
        Simon

First, you might see if you can run the program in LINUX under WINE;
perhaps someone at 3dStudio would know. Sorry, haven't the foggiest about
that myself.

WINDOWS needs to be see itself as the primary active partition when it
boots, but not necessarily the first partition on your HD; however, the
partition will need to be within the 1024 cylinder limitation area. On my
system with a 13GB drive running under BIOS-enabled LBA addressing, that
happens around 8GB.

If I remember correctly, the LINUX FDISK program allows non-destructive
partitioning of DOS (16-bit) partitions, but doesn't allow moving
partitions. I know of some programs that can help with this such as
Partition Magic or OS Commander, but I think both have installation
limitations that preclude their being installed on a straight LINUX system
such as you have now. Perhaps one or the other (or both) can be set to run
from a diskette. You might look into this. I realize that means you'll
have to buy and install a diskette drive, but look on the bright side -
you can also use it to create the sometimes necessary LINUX boot diskette.

Despite the expense, you might also consider buying a second system,
either new or used, strictly for use as a WINDOWS platform or installing a
removable HD bay and buying a second HD and mounting hardware for such
use. If the second, remember that you'll probably need to set up both HD's
for use in the bay.

I hope this is somewhat clearer than mud - my system has both OS on it,
but I had WINDOWS first, then installed LINUX. Much of what I've written
is based on the research I did before my installation. My system default
boots to WINDOWS and I then use LINLOADER to launch LINUX. In my case, I
did that because I didn't want LILO mucking with the MBR.

Good luck - Crawford

--
Posted via CNET Help.com
http://www.help.com/

No.  hda2 is an extended partition as it says.  PC architecture
(independent of the OS) only supports 4 primary partitions.
But one of these can be an extended partition which may contain
within it several logical partitions.  This is the way to have
more than 5 partitions.   In your case you seem to have only
one Linux partition, of six GB.   You also have a swap partition
(inside of the extended partition) of 256 Meg.  This is a bit large
for a swap partition, but I understand that with the latest
kernels one can have larger swap partitions.   There used to
be no point in one larger than 128 MB.  If you just have Linux
on your computer, you could probably get away with just four
primary partitions, one of which was swap.   Something like this
would work
/dev/hda1   20 MB for /boot
/dev/hda2 2 GB for /
/dev/hda3 4 GB for /home
/dev/hda4  256 MB for swap

You could also have more partitions and one can argue about
that forever---and some people will.  If you want more than
four partitions, you will need one extended partition with
several logical partitions therein.

Quote:> hda5 is swap

> What should I add where?  Also, I not familiar with LILO and I don't have a
> floppy disk drive...

> Thanks for the help,
>         Simon

I think that Windows normally has to be the first partition,
although I've seen claims otherwise.   Depending on how large
your Windows partition has to be, you may or may not run into
the 1024 cylinder problem.   But you can probably beat that
using the latest version of Linux.   Except for that, here
might be a reasonable partitioning

/dev/hda1 2 GB for Windows
/dev/hda2 20 MB for /boot
/dev/hda3 1.5 GB for /
/dev/hda4 the rest of the disk extended
/dev/hda5 256 MB swap
/dev/hda6 the rest of the disk for /home

--

Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208

Right.

Quote:> hda2 is /boot (i think?)

No. hda2 is an extended partition that only contains hda5 (see the
identical start and end numbers)

Quote:> hda5 is swap
Right.

> What should I add where?  Also, I not familiar with LILO and I don't have a
> floppy disk drive...

What you need is the following:
A windoze partition that starts within the first 2 gig of your drive.
A /boot partition also within the first 2 gig.
So Id recommend this layout:
part.   size            type            system  
hda1    20 meg          primary         linux   # this is /boot
hda2    (what you need  primary         FAT32   # marked active (bootable)
        for windoze)
hda3    the rest of hda3 primary        linux   # this is /
hda4    256 meg         primary         linux swap

You can move your existing partitions with partition magic or do a
complete reinstall. Note that you cannot any more partitions with this
layout. But if you add an extended partition, you might have to do a
complete reinstall.

Tom

Quote:

> Thanks for the help,
>         Simon