Hello.....this is my first post to this forum...i used the Rad Guide for Partitioning along with Partition Magic on my 60gb hard drive (many thanks for that guide!) and i now have one primary for win98 and 6 logicals in this manner.....

C: win98 13.9gb
D: 3d 11.1
E: mp3's 11.1
F: pics 3.69
G: technotes 3.69
H: Norton Ghost 7.40
I: Xdown 4.94

(i wish i'd made the mp3 drive 17gb like you recommended..i knew about that; but once i got into the actual partitioning i must have had a brain fart!) :-/

Now...I've decided to try to install Linux...can i do that now? I'd like to put it at the first of the drive but will i have to mess with windows to do it? At the moment win98 is taking up 9.87gb. Can i move my C: program files to another drive? Will i have to uninstall them and reinstall them or can i just move them? I don't use the D: 3d drive so i could put them there. I'd like to make my c drive smaller anyway because when i'm making the ghost images they are always so big. Any suggestions?  ???

I've thought of just wiping everything out of c drive and starting over....but i'd rather not do that if i can get out of it! I've never even installed windows before! :o

So....any help you can give me will be much appreciated!!! Thanks!

welcome.

i like your partitioning scheme. :)

if i was u, i'd get a copy of partition magic & shrink the C: drive partition by ~3gb, from the side closest to the D: drive. then i'd make a ext2 partition with the unused space there.

PM can shrink that partition without destroying data.

but i have heard horror stories, so back everything up 1st.

also, only perform on e function at a time with PM. First shrink, perferom operation, then format the free space. don't do both concurrently, even tho PM will let you.

some older versions of linux like to be within the cylinder 1024 mark, which equates to ~ the 8gb mark, but most newer versions shouldn't be affacted by this limitation.

the best place to get linux info is at the forums here:

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi

great group of guys.

in particular, u want to ask about support for your ata controllers (prolly dma100), ur chipset, and other possible snags u might encounter.

if ur already familair with unix, you'll be ahead of the curve.

Thanks Radministrator....for the quick reply and the link to the linux forums. Looks like the exact place i need to be!

And no i don't know anything about unix YET....i've just started college for computer programming tho, so i should be learning soon enough whether i install linux on my home machine or not.  :)

I've got partition magic and thats a good idea about taking 3 gigs off the win partition and adding it to the 3d partition....don't know why i didn't think of that!  :P And i'll be sure and do the steps separately, guess its safer that way huh? I've already got everything backed up on my machine anyway....so now all i've got to do is make sure linux is compatible with my hardware....glad you mentioned that....i hadn't got that far yet!

I'll be installing the Redhat Valhalla 7.3 version so it shouldn't give me a fit over the 8 gb limit.....I hope!????

Thanks again!

I realize this post is a couple months old....wonder how the guy made out?

Thought I'd put in my 2cents anyway, in case anyone else has a similar question.  I loaded Linux Mandrake on my box awhile back.  The process was a little sticky to load Mandrake 8 and Lilo boot loader, because I was triple booting (5 partitions) 98SE/2kpro/XP.

What finally worked for me was to use PM7 to split one existing partition into about 5 /ext2 partitions  (one each for root, apps, boot, etc.)  also leaving 1.5 gigs of Fat 32 on that same drive letter.  Partition Magic did a far better job than the Mandrake installer to setup the partitions.  lol - I went round and round with that process for a day or 2 :)

Then, I loaded Mandrake and Lilo boot loader, only I made SURE I put the lilo boot loader on it's own ext2 partition.  I don't remember the exact process (been awhile) but previous tries of letting Lilo load to the default settings never did work.  Adding lines to my boot.ini never worked either - maybe because I was trying to load too many OS's?

Then I loaded Bootmagic to take over the boot choice on startup.  Gave me a  choice then  on boot- Windows or Linux.  Choosing Linux took me to the Lilo boot screen.  I'm not sure why I couldn't get it to go w/out Bootmagic - I could get to the boot screen, but it wouldn't get me "in" to Linux until I used Boot Magic.

Another great thing about Partition Magic and ext2 partitions is, the only way I could *see* the ext2 partitions from windows was through Partition Magic.  Came in handy recently when I had 1.5 gigs of Fat 32 on the same G: drive as the ext2 partitions, and I was going to repartition that whole drive as a slave drive.  

I decided to take Mandrake off  -  I had too many OS's and too little time)  :)   I was able to delete the ext2's and resize all 5 partitions through PM, without losing the data on that 1.5gig of fat32  - the only portion of that drive letter with the sub partitions of ext2 ,  that *windows* recognized .

Then I installed a new 60gig HD, dual booting only 98SE and XP  and use the old 30 gig as slave for data.  I was horrified when I installed windows for the first time and saw I had 9 drive letters, plus the 2 cdroms!  4 partitions on the new drive and 5 on the old.  My brane is too tired to deal with that many, so I slimed them down a bit :)

Said all that to say...  it is a little cumbersome to get things setup the way you like them on your drive to co-exist with Linux.  I probably took the long way around with my limited tech knowledge, but Partition Magic is the way to go.  It allows you to setup your drive the way YOU want it setup, and if you change your mind it's a snap to rearrange things.  

Great tip Radministrator, to do one operation at a time with PM.  Good advice for any changes while in Windows.  Reboot kind of clears the air so it can digest things before additional changes are made :)