[ Hardware ] [ Getting Linux ] [ Installing Windows XP ] [ Installing Linux ]
Written by dt2 (dt2pc (at) yahoo (dot) com)
www.geocities.com/dt2pc ~ Last updated: July 2004
Note: This website is currently under construction. All of the stuff that's posted is generally good info, but I haven't actually built the computer yet or installed anything yet. As I actually do all the stuff that I want to do with the new computer, I'll update this site with those instructions, including any problems I ran across. In the meantime, any links you see here are still excellent resources for your own research. Good luck!
Overeager? Jump down to the Steps.
After culling the Web doing lots and lots of research (like a good newbie), I found tons of information all over the place about different aspects of this task. This site is an attempt to draw all of those resources into one place. At the same time, I hope that other people who are facing similar situations can learn from this particular combination of tasks/parameters (XP/Linux dual boot, using NTLDR as the boot manager not GRUB/LILO, installing Windows and Linux on different physical drives, using a SATA drive, etc.). At the very least, you'll learn one way that does work, even if it's not exactly the same setup as what you have (because, frankly, what are the odds?). So instead of "this is your entire answer" (which doesn't exist, by the way) I'll try to give you all of the details of what I did, so that you can use that as a springboard for your own research.
I'll try to give you the background/story on this page so that I can just get into the specifics on the other pages (i.e. not bore you with my witty humor throughout when all you care about are the details).
I know this site is aesthetically pretty bare-bones, but I wanted to focus on content, not prettiness. And this way it's easy to print or cut-and-paste (you'll notice as well all the links are shown as URLs so you can read them off paper).
If you have other thoughts or corrections, etc., I'd love to hear them. E-mail me at [ dt2pc (at) yahoo (dot) com ].
You may find this site helpful if one or more of the following criteria apply (if all of them apply, then this site is truly a lucky find):
My current system is dying. It was a Dell OptiPlex Pentium III 450MHz that has served me for 5 years. It's just really frickin' slow now. I won't bother trying the salvage the pre-ATX motherboard, the PC100 SDRAM chips, or the sad CPU. I will, however, extract the 64MB PCI nVidia GeForce2 MX graphics card, the 3.5" floppy drive, the 100MB Iomega Zip floppy drive, the NEC DV-5800A DVD-ROM drive, and the 6GB IDE (i.e. parallel ATA, or P-ATA) hard disk.
I have mail-ordered the components from Newegg.com. My complete hardware specs can be found on the My Hardware page. I want to install Windows XP Professional on the 80GB SATA hard drive, and MandrakeLinux 10.0 Official on the 6GB IDE drive. And I don't want to pay more than I have to -- and that includes paying for utilities like ISO burners and partitioning software.
If you notice anything wrong on any of these pages, please send me an e-mail!
This is the stuff that I did, to the best of my records and memory. That doesn't mean that you should do it. If following these exact same steps make your computer blow up, your girl(boy)friend leave you, or your Rice Krispies talk to you, it's not my fault.
