MBR

Each of the machines that I have made dual boot with Mandriva used FAT32
on the Windows half. Soon to be working on an XP machine that uses NTFS.

With LILO I always select installing to the first section of the MBR.
Will that cause problems if NTFS is in use on that machine? I ask
because I'm aware that generally Linux can read but not write to NTFS
formatted partitions. Not sure if the MBR is considered part of any
partition.

Not a problem.

As a side note Linux can read and write to NTFS these days, but you need
a patch. I don't recall the URL, and it isn't that important to me, but
I am certain it exists.

In any case, you can do what you describe quite easily, as the MBR is
*NOT* part of any filesystem.

--
****** Warning - Highly US-Centric .sig approaching! ******
The only way to differentiate "The War on Terrorism"
from "The War on Drugs" is to measure the amount of piss
on the Founding Fathers graves. - James J. Dines

Should be just fine. Install XP first.

The MBR is not part of any other partition, and has its own 'format'.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

I recently installed Linux on an el cheapo computer from WalMart (the
other evil empire). It came with MS-XP installed. I simply resized and
repartitioned as always, and did the install, and there was no problem.

You must have never booted into Window$ (If you had, you could offer us
a litany of problems with which you dealt.) :-)

--
****** Warning - Highly US-Centric .sig approaching! ******
The only way to differentiate "The War on Terrorism"
from "The War on Drugs" is to measure the amount of piss
on the Founding Fathers graves. - James J. Dines

It can certainly read NTFS, but writing is still very uncertain due to the
little ' tweaks' that MS do from time to time.

Dave

Little side note. The Acer laptop I bought last year came with XP
pre-installed. Surprised me as it was FAT32 instead of NTFS.

I noticed the same thing when shopping for a laptop - Acer machines had 60
gig hard drive, with two 30 gig partition in fat32

Stuart

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3 23rd February 23:27 whiskers External User Posts: 1	MBR Should be just fine. Install XP first. The MBR is not part of any other partition, and has its own 'format'. -- -- ^^^^^^^^^^ -- Whiskers -- ~~~~~~~~~~

4 23rd February 23:27 ray External User Posts: 1	MBR I recently installed Linux on an el cheapo computer from WalMart (the other evil empire). It came with MS-XP installed. I simply resized and repartitioned as always, and did the install, and there was no problem.

5 24th February 01:13 james j. dines External User Posts: 1	MBR You must have never booted into Window$ (If you had, you could offer us a litany of problems with which you dealt.) :-) -- **** Warning - Highly US-Centric .sig approaching! **** The only way to differentiate "The War on Terrorism" from "The War on Drugs" is to measure the amount of piss on the Founding Fathers graves. - James J. Dines

6 24th February 01:13 gort External User Posts: 1	MBR It can certainly read NTFS, but writing is still very uncertain due to the little ' tweaks' that MS do from time to time. Dave

7 24th February 02:50 jim External User Posts: 1	MBR Little side note. The Acer laptop I bought last year came with XP pre-installed. Surprised me as it was FAT32 instead of NTFS.

8 24th February 02:51 stuart miller External User Posts: 1	MBR I noticed the same thing when shopping for a laptop - Acer machines had 60 gig hard drive, with two 30 gig partition in fat32 Stuart