[lug] Dual Boot with Windows XP

[Hugh Brown]

A backup of XP in 32MB?  That's some incredible compression going on. 
Most of the time it is a manufacturer made partition with diagnostic
tools.  The last 8M is because MS is braindead about its partitioning. 
I have never had any success using MS partitioning tools (at install
time anyway) to claim that last 8M.  It just refuses to do it.

You aren't going to miss 32MB so I would leave it alone, shrink the XP
down to 4-5gigs and then use the rest for linux.

On my laptop, I have a "Dell Utility" partition listed as /dev/hda1 with
a size of 32MB.

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1             1         4     32098+  de  Dell Utility


On Wed, 2002-07-03 at 13:16, Greg Smith wrote:
> 
> Or possibly a backup of XP.   I believe HP sets up their boxes this way.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> 
> At 11:10 AM 7/3/2002 -0600, you wrote:
> 
> 
> >My theory is that the first partition contains engineering programs for
> >performing diagnostics. Compaq used to do it this way.
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: lug-admin at lug.boulder.co.us [mailto:lug-admin at lug.boulder.co.us]On
> >Behalf Of J. Wayde Allen
> >Sent: 03 July, 2002 11:14 AM
> >To: List: Boulder Linux User's Group
> >Subject: [lug] Dual Boot with Windows XP
> >
> >
> >
> >Just bought a new laptop and need to setup Linux.  As usual step one for
> >me is to pretty much wipe the disk clean and start over, and often I just
> >install Linux and nothing else.  However, this time I'd like to make this
> >a dual boot machine.  Nothing particularly odd there, except I was just
> >looking at the partitioning scheme for the factory install of XP and
> >they've got:
> >
> >Name    Flags   Part Type       FS Type         Label   Size
> >----------------------------------------------------------------
> >hda1            Primary         Unknown (DE)               32.91 MBytes
> >hda2    Boot    Primary         NTFS            [^C]    29964.70 MBytes
> >                 Pri/Log         Free Space                  8.23 MBytes
> >
> >This is a bit different than what I've seen in the past.  Is there
> >something special about the first and last partitions here?  My first
> >inclination is like I said, to delete everything, partition off a minimal
> >section at the beginning of the disk for a reinstallation of XP, and then
> >install Linux in what is left.  I'm just wondering if maybe my
> >partitioning might end up being a bit more complicated this
> >time.  Comments or references I should read?
> >
> >- Wayde
> >   (wallen at lug.boulder.co.us)