install Linux
like grease lightning!

 Contents 

A DVD screenshot of Meredith Burgess playing the villain Penguin was intended to be here. But since its taking 20th Century Fox over 2 weeks to read my one question email you'll just have to imagine the picture in your heads. ....by the way FOX I'm still waiting for a YES or NO response on my email.

 Info 

 4. Install Windows XP from scratch 

My tutorial expects you to wipe out everything on your hard drive so before you follow all the steps in my tutorial make sure to backup all your personal data!!!

Step 1
Boot up your PC with the Windows XP installation CD. Press Enter key to setup Windows XP now. Then press F8 = I agree.

Delete all partitions, this equals to erasing your entire hard drive. When it's all exorcised it should return this message along with how much disk space you get to play with. Where the size is given in (MB) megabytes.

Unpartitioned space ????? MB

Step 2
Here comes the most fun part you'll get to use pen and paper. You're going to draw how you want your hard drive to look like. This step might take one whole day to do if things are done meticulously! So you should probably exit the installation and shutdown your PC and continue some other time. It requires some deep thinking if you want the structure to be satisfactory to your needs 10 years forward into the future. In the previous screenshot example I was given 5577 (MB) that's around 5.5 (GB) for me to play with. Since 5.5 (GB) is too little disk space for setting up a Dual Boot system I'm going to show you how a real life system can look like when we draw on paper.

This is a PC that have 2 hard drives because of optimizations reasons. Long story short it's better to have 2 small HD s than having 1 fast monster HD in your PC. Maintenance will be much more efficient this way. But if you only have 1 HD in your PC and can't do anything about it now, nor in the future. You can still follow this tutorial. Things just won't be 100% optimal like my PC :-P but by applying most of the things mentioned here you'll get at least 70% more optimal than those pre-installed PC s and laptops from IBM, Compaq, HP and Dell, etc. etc. They usually don't include any separate Windows XP installation CD that's their biggest mistake of the last 2 decades.

Anyhow here's a drawing of how I like my PC's two hard drives should be partitioned. I hope it doesn't require that much explaining. Like they say a picture says more than a 1000 words if I need to explain this then I must've failed.

Along with the drawing comes a handy technical chart for you to reference to when discussing your partition problems with people on the Ubuntu forums. As you can see my 1st hard drive which I named HD 1 in my drawing is interpreted as /hda by Linux. My 2nd hard drive which I named HD 2 in my drawing is interpreted as /hdb by Linux.

Step 3
When you're finished drawing and planning. Redo step 1 again! After the whole hard drive is deleted we're gonna create our Windows relevant partitions. The example in this screenshot is only a simulation it has nothing to do with the above drawing example. Anyhow in the screenshot I tried to create 3 different partitions with only 5.5 GB to play with. By entering 3000 MB when creating the first partition and 1500 MB when creating the second partition, the rest of the 1000 MB you just leave unprocessed. Ubuntu Live CD will take care of it later.

Be aware!
Don't press Enter on the main overview screen until you've created all Windows related partitions already. By pressing the C key whenever the previous one has been made enables you to create several partitions. I rarely read that carefully when dealing with computers so I always screw up at this stage and accidentally install Win XP before finishing my multi partitioning jobs. :-) You've been warned!

When the partitioning has gone like you've instructed it's time to highlight C:\ partition and press Enter key in order to install Windows XP.

Next you're asked if you want to format C:\ partition with NTFS or FAT. NTFS is the preferred filesystem for Windows XP usage but most of my PC games won't function on that filesystem. Since we're building a Dual Boot system were we only use Windows as a gaming platform only! I would advise choosing FAT filesystem for this format.

When it's all finished and you're logged into Windows XP start the filemanager program and select the other Windows related partition we did earlier. It hasn't been formatted yet if you still remember then just choose FAT32 filesystem. You're halfway there now so give yourself a pat on the back.

4 / 9

<< Prev       Next >>

↑     ↑

(( ƒorum ))