linux and partitioning

Well, i'm a linux enthusiast that has just recently bought a inspiron 9300.



i'm using partition magic to resize the partitions, but it shows that i currently have 3 partitions:




when i tried to resize the main partition, partition magic informed me that it crossed the 1024 cylinder boundary, and that it might not be bootable. i thought once I install slackware, lilo will do the booting trick, but i don't wanna risk it... i've had a bunch of problems before with desktop hard drives not booting up, and i'd just remove them from the computer and take them somewhere else to fix them. but now i'm far from home and i don't feel like opening this notebook in case anything goes wrong

can anyone help me, suggestions, procedures, experiences?


thanks in advance,

manero;

 

You could re-install windows. Before you do, re-partition the drives to the way you to install windows and linux. That is the way I did it anyway with Unbuntu on the linux partition. Unbuntu has a good boot loader. Partition Magic is the only way I know of to re-size partition within Windows.

 

Have you tried rebooting? It should work fine. See http://www.jetcafe.org/~npc/articles/linux-on-compaq-laptop.html.
You presently have 3 partitions: your small windows boot partition, your XP partition proper, and a small Dell recovery partition. You need to reduce the area of the XP (C) partition, leaving a blank partition ready for a linux installation. Then let your linux distro installation create it's operating partition and swap partition out of that new blank partition. (you can get Partion Magic to partition this area ready for the linux distro - create 2 partitions out of the blank partition: all but 1G is the major partition and format that as ext3, the 2nd section (1G) format as llinux swap), but it is probably easier to let the linux installation do it). In installing linux, make sure you choose the option to use "unused partition" for linux! Before you install linux decide whether you want to have linux managing boot options (into xp or linux) or Boot Magic (a programme which comes with Partition Magic). In the first case, you put the boot loader in the MBR. If you intend to load from Boot Magic (my preference: install Boot Magic before installing the linux distro) put the boot loader in the first sector of the linux boot partition. Most linux distros give you the option during the install process. Before you do anything of course, make sure you have a curent backup of your priceless files in XP! Things can go wrong!