I have previously configured a dual boot system with Grub using XP (FAT32) and linux with no problems. However, on my main computer, I tried XP (NTFS) and Linux with disasterous results - lost my whole windows disk. I am keen to try and load Ubuntu concurrenly on a separate disk on my main XP computer but do not want to loose my bills etc. Has anyone successfully dual loaded Ubuntu on an XP machine where the XP is NTFS? Alternatively, can one convert NTFS to FAT32? Cheers John
John Torrance wrote:
I have previously configured a dual boot system with Grub using XP (FAT32) and linux with no problems. However, on my main computer, I tried XP (NTFS) and Linux with disasterous results - lost my whole windows disk. I am keen to try and load Ubuntu concurrenly on a separate disk on my main XP computer but do not want to loose my bills etc. Has anyone successfully dual loaded Ubuntu on an XP machine where the XP is NTFS? Alternatively, can one convert NTFS to FAT32?
Ubuntu can resize NTFS partitions so you can put a Linux partition in the newly created space, and read them, but it cannot (safely) give you write access to an NTFS disk. The easiest thing to do is keep data you need on a Samba server on another machine or another FAT32 partition created for the purpose. Craig
* John Torrance <jtorrance(a)ihug.co.nz> [2005-07-02 05:55]:
However, on my main computer, I tried XP (NTFS) and Linux with disasterous results - lost my whole windows disk.
That can’t have much to do with the filesystem. Something must have touched the Windows partition for whatever reason, but the filesystem type was not it.
Has anyone successfully dual loaded Ubuntu on an XP machine where the XP is NTFS?
I know of various people dualbooting various Windows versions with various Linux distros, including Windows on NTFS partitions. There is no reason why it shouldn’t work. That’s one reason the “partitions” stuff really was invented for, after all – so you can stick multiple OSes on one machine without them stepping on each other’s toes.
Alternatively, can one convert NTFS to FAT32?
You don’t want to. FAT blows chunks. Regards, -- Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>
participants (4)
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A. Pagaltzis -
Craig Box -
John Torrance -
Oliver Jones