remember : A picture can tell thousand of words.
My Hard Disk Booting system is bit complex but I will explain
Consider Windows_XP.JPG
There are 2 Hard disks in my computer named
- Disk 0 ( Windows ) / hda ( Linux )
- Disk 1 ( Windows ) / hdb ( Linux )
I have installed
- Microsoft Windows XP ( Servise Pack 3 ) :: Disk 1
- Microsoft Server 2003 Enterprise Edition ( Servise Pack 2 ) :: Disk
1
- Mandriva Spring 2008 Powerpack :: Disk 0
Microsoft Windows XP Supports up to 4 Primary Partitions.
If you are installing Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows XP CD
will create one
Primary Partition. Other Partitions are Extended Partitions by
default.
Here There are 3 Primary Partitions ( Dark Blue )
and one Extended / Logical Drive ( Green / Blue ) in Disk 1 created
using Disk Management.
now you can format and and install Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft
Server 2003 as usual way.
on Disk 0, I have used one Primary Partition and Extended Partition
and 4 Logical Drive ( Logical Drive are created by
different different Operating Systems. ( Eg : Microsoft Windows XP /
Microsoft Server 2003, Redhat Enterprise Linux AS 4.0, Novell SuSE
Desktop 10.0,
Mandriva Spring 2008 Powerpack )
The reason I have used a FAT32 File system in Disk 0 is, Some Linux
Distributions ( Eg : redhat / ubuntu ) does not support NTFS File
System by default.
Consider Linux_MS2008P.jpg
For Installing Linux basically you need at least 3 Partitions mounted
as / ( root ), SWAP ( 3 times the space of the physical ram ), Home.
These are formatted using Ext3 file system. Some Linux distributions
use Extended Partitions some use Primary Partitions.
Note : Linux does not have good Hardware Support.
- pujitha