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The Trick to Dual-Booting
In order to get things to work right, install Windows FIRST, then linux...after windows is installed, it won't touch the MBR unless you tell it to...and the linux boot loader(LILO or GRUB, depending on your distro) is smart enough to recognize a windows partition.
Also, MAKE A LINUX BOOT FLOPPY!!! In the event that something within windows messes with the MBR, causing you to only be able to get into windows, a linux boot floppy will allow you to reinstall LILO or GRUB. I know mandrake's setup tool gives you a chance to create one during the linux install, i can't speak for any other distros however...
However, sharing partitions is a bit trickier...as of the last linux distro I played around with(Mandrake 9 or 9.1 i believe), NTFS support was read-only. So, if you want to be able, for example, to modify files in your windows "My Documents" folder from within linux(i.e. using OpenOffice,) your windows partition will need to be FAT32. Unfortunately, without a third party tool such as partitionmagic, you can't convert an NTFS partition to FAT32 without recreating the partition, which causes you to lose all of the data in the partition.
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Nate Smith
nsmith@smythsoft.com
12 seasons, 4 teams, and more time logged behind the scorekeeper's table than I care to remember...
returning for 2011? only time will tell...
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