Dual-boot

From Mandrivausers Wiki

When you install a Linux based operating system, like Mandriva, it comes with a bootmanager that will be set up at the end of the installation procedure. The bootmanager will, in case you have another Operating System like Windows already installed on your computer, automatically set up a dual-boot system for you, so that you will be able to boot into both Mandriva and Windows. Each time you boot, you will get the chance to choose which operating system to use.

[edit] Partitions

When more than one operating system is installed on a system, it is normal to have them in separate partitions on the hard drive(s). If a Windows machine is set up to take up the whole drive, the Windows partition needs to be shrunk in order to make room for the separate Linux partition(s).

The Linux installer will normally be able to create the necessary partitions as part of the installation process. Mandriva's installer gives options on how to organise the new partitions.

One thing to watch out for is that the formatting of the Windows partition and the Linux partitions will be different. Windows can obviously read and write to its own NTFS partitions but cannot read the partitions formatted for Linux (often formatted as ext2 or ext3). Linux can read and write to its own partitions of course, and can also read Windows' NTFS partitions, but cannot write to them. This makes sharing files between the systems more difficult. It is therefore common to have a separate FAT32 partition (or a FAT32-formatted USB stick) which both systems can write to.