Partitioning my Harddrive

I have downloaded Mandrake Linux and I am going to burn it onto a CD soon. I hear it is good to partition your harddrive when you add another operating system. I have a C and D drive. The C drive contains the majority of the memory will the D drive only contains about 2GB. I am wondering if I can just install Mandrake onto the D drive? Can I make the capacity of the D drive larger? Am I going to have to make a whole new partition? Someone please help me out. Thanks.

Oh yeah...if I do have to make a whole new partition, how do I do it?

[wizbones]

You say you have a C and a D drive already, do you know if you have only one hard drive or is it two?

I am going to assume you are running windows 95/98 here. So do a restart and as soon as you see the starting windows 98 text before the cloud screen press F8

You should get a menu. Chose the "Comman Prompt Only" option and press enter.

At the C:\ prompt type FDISK and press enter
Chose option 4, write down this info and post here and we can further assist you. Just press ESC to exit out of FDISK

Hi Bilo,

1st, indeed, check your partition structure using fdisk /status switch (for safety) as Wizbones recommended (you can also do it from start -> run -> fdisk/status)

Now, I've also checked on mandrake & it has an option to install OS directly from Windows 95 or 98, you've better to select this option, because it doesn't reconfigure your partition structure (MBR actually) and probably better for beginners.

There are many programs for creating/resizing/deleting partitions without damaging the data, I personally prefer PQMagic but it's not shareware (since v2.0)
I assume there is such a shareware or freeware utility.
I'm almost sure there is an option to modify your HDD structure during installation of mandrake, but it's usually complicated with linux (Disk Druid was just a headache for newbie like me .

I'm don't know about mandrake, but you probably would have to create separate partition for linux and also swap drive  ???


Cheers
Chef

p.s. Make sure to backup all important data before starting the installation of new OS.

Go here to look at my info: http://www.skateboard4fun.net/FDISK.htm

sorry, HTML tags arent allowed in here

After looking at my information, could youp lease give me detailed instructions on how I setup linux onto the new drive,partition, or whatever I have to do.  I would appreciate it A LOT.  Just tell me where to go (I have Partition Magic Pro 7.0).

THANKS!

[vee_ess]

Yeah, it is one drive so you have more options...I would just install linux on d: and its programs on c:\program files2. but you said you have partition magic, what chef was talkin bout. PQ is power quest, the company whom makes partition magic. with that, you dont have to erase your disk as you re-partition it. i haven't installed mandrake or any other linux yet as i am still downloading mandrake 8.1 from a server in texas using my 56k connection. 120 hours to go. if the problem still holds in 2 months, i will be able to help a little more.

Haven't tried the new PM 7.0, but they all work the same way, you have to do the following steps :

1. Select partition with available space
2. Resize it to create some free space for new partition
3. Create new partitions using free space

it's all done from comfy & simple interface, so you shouldn't be confused and there always undo option.

now, as previously mentioned I don't know much about mandrake, but for linux you usually have to create 2 partitions :
1) Linux partition (~2Gb for start)
2) Swap partition (200 Mb max).

Now, things probably changed since I've installed it last time, so I can strongly recommend you to ask for advice from www.mandrake.com support team, they know all you need

Installing mandrake is obviously not as simple as just creating partition, so you'll need advice from them, after all, quality support is another great things in Linux world. (ding ding ding micro)


Good luck
Chef

I can't put linux onto my D drive because thats the system save drive and I dont wanna mess with that.  I am just going to make a new partition and put it on there.

I am having trouble burning the ISO's with Nero.  Can someone please tell me how to burn an ISO on to a CDR with Nero 5??  Thanks

[wizbones]

When you open Nero the first Icon option on the left is for burning ISO images and all the defaults should work.

What is the error you get with your burned ISO's? May need to redownload the ISO images. ? ?

I got nero to burn ISO's now, but when it gets to the screen where it starts the burn process...nero freezes along with the rest of my computer...