Windows XP and Fedora Core 4 - Dual booting step by step


This is not a well organized or well planned tutorial. So, do not expect much from it. This is the rough installation summary of both Windows XP and Fedora Core 4 operating systems on my own machine. It can also be applied with any Windows (2000 & 2003) and any Fedora Core (1, 2 & 3) dual boot installation. I hope it will help some new bies. It is intended for Windows users who want to use Linux as another operating system. In this tutorial, I will go through a fresh installation and I will not use any third party software like Partition Magic for disk partitioning.

NOTES:
1. You will need Windows XP bootable CD, Windows 98 bootable CD for FDISK (Windows version, you can also have it on a floppy disc) and any Fedora Core distribution CDs (x86 only).
2. The author of this tutorial shall not be liable to the readers or any other users of this tutorial for any damages or loss as a result of implementing, installing and using the contents/materials provided in this tutorial. Use at your own risk!


Step-1:
Existing Windows users follow this step, for removing your current partition To remove the existing partitions (FAT32 or NTFS) of your machine, insert Windows XP bootable CD into your CD ROM drive and reboot your machine. When the message Press any key to boot from CD... appears, press any key.

A blue screen will appear, load some files, and then gives you three options. See a screenshot below:




Press R to enter to the Recovery Console. A DOS like console will appear. It will ask you which Windows installation you want to recover (If multiple Windows installation detected), with a list of existing Windows installations. Choose any one from them (Enter 1 for the first one, 2 for the second and so on). It will ask you for the Administrator's password. Enter the Administrator's password and press Enter. Now the prompt looks something like C:\WINDOWS> or C:\WINNT> depending on your selected operating system and it’s location.

Type DISKPART (Disk Partition) and press Enter. In the Disk Partition utility, you can view all of your FAT, FAT32, NTFS and other unknown partitions (Created by other operating systems), as well as unused free space on your hard drive.

Select each partition with arrow keys and press D to delete it, and then press L to confirm deletion. You should start removing from the bottom and then go up. When you go to delete a primary partition, an additional warning message comes up, press Enter to accept, then press L to confirm deletion. Now you have a hard drive without any partition on it, like a fresh hard drive.


Step-2:
Users starting with a fresh hard drive, follow this step
This step is for both who followed STEP-1 and who did not follow STEP-1, because they have a new hard drive (We are now going to use the FDISK utility. I have it on my Windows 98 bootable CD. If you have it on a floppy or some other location, please run your FDISK utility from there). Insert your Windows 98 bootable CD into your CD ROM drive and reboot your machine (We could use Windows XP’s DISKPART utility to create partition, but it creates every partition as a primary partition and one hard drive can have 4 primary partitions only). Two options will appear, select the second one Boot from the CD ROM and press Enter. Again three options will appear, select the second one Start computer with CD ROM support and press Enter. It will show some messages and then greets you with a A:\> prompt. Type FDISK and press Enter.

It will then show you a big message for your large hard drive, press Y for yes and then press Enter. Now you are in FDISK's main menu. Press 1 to create a primary partition and press Enter. Press 1 again and press Enter. It will then verify your entire hard drive. After it completed verifying your hard drive, it will ask you whether you want to use your whole hard drive as your primary partition or not! Press N for no and press Enter. After a few seconds later, it will ask you for the size of the primary partition in megabytes (1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte). Enter your desired size for the primary partition in megabytes and press Enter. Remember, your Windows XP installation should be on the primary partition, C:

Now you have your primary partition set, you should activate it. Press 2 to set your active partition and press Enter. Press 1 again to activate drive C: . You always need to press Esc key to go back to FDISK's main menu. Use it when appropriate. Now you need to create an extended partition, where your other drives will reside (Such as drive D:, drive E: and so on). Press 1 in FDISK’s main menu and press Enter. Now press 2 for creating an extended partition and press Enter. It will now verify your existing free space. When you are prompted for extended partition size, enter your desired size for the extended partition in megabytes and press Enter. Do not forget to leave some free space for Linux installation. We are talking about Fedora Core 4, so you should leave 8-10 gigabytes for it. How to leave free space? Do not enter all your existing free space for the extended partition. Let's say, you have 40,000 megabytes left. Type 30,000 megabytes for your extended partition. So, Fedora Core 4 will get 10,000 megabytes for it.

After creating an extended partition, FDISK automatically scans and asks you to create logical drives on it (Drive D:, drive E: and so on). Decide how many logical drives you want and then divide the extended partition into your desired drives. Let's say, you have created your extended partition with 30,000 megabytes. Now you wish to have two drives, then allocate 15,000 megabytes to each!

After you have done creating all logical drives, press the Esc key twice to exit from the FDISK utility. Now remove the Windows 98 bootable CD from your CD ROM drive and insert your Windows XP bootable CD into your CD ROM drive. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del together to reboot your machine. When the message Press any key to boot from CD... appears, press any key.

A blue screen will appear, load some files, and then gives you three options. See the screenshot given above. Press Enter to start the Windows XP installation process. Press F8 key to agree Microsoft’s License Agreement. Select drive C: for Windows XP installation and press Enter. Press Enter again for confirmation. Now the setup asks you to format your drive C: (Since it has not been formatted yet). It gives you 4 options. See a screenshot below:




You should select Format the partition with NTFS file system to have a secure and stable drive. After you select and press Enter for your desired drive format, setup formats the drive, and then copies necessary files onto it. After a few minutes later, your machine will automatically reboot. Windows XP graphical installation screen will appear after the reboot, and few minutes later it will ask you for your name, company, serial number, time zone etc. Provide necessary information to it. Setup will continue and again it will ask you for your network configuration. Select Typical (You can change it later after the installation completes), click Next, type WORKGROUP and then click on the Next button.

As soon as the installation completes, it reboots your machine automatically. Now your Windows XP account setup wizard will appear with some great music. Complete these steps and login to your account.


Step-3: Follow this step to install Fedora Core 4
Okay I would like to start the Fedora Core 4 installation now. Insert your Fedora Core 4 disc-1 into your CD ROM drive and reboot your machine. At the boot: _ prompt, press Enter for a graphical installation.

After showing you some messages, the media check dialog box will appear. I always skip this step (Because it takes 12-15 minutes to complete and most of the time, it ends up with some error). If you want to check your discs, go ahead! To skip this step, do not simply select Skip and press Enter. It may or may not crash your installation! Select OK, press Enter, and then select Eject Media, press Enter. Insert the disc again, now select Continue and press Enter.

Wait for some moments, the X Server will start up, and will greet you with a graphical wizard. Click on the Next button. In the Language Selection screen, choose English (English) for the entire installation process (You are free to choose your local language, but I have to use English for this tutorial). Click on the Next button. In the Keyboard Configuration dialog, choose U.S. English. Click on the Next button. Here you will have to choose your Installation Type. Never mind, I am choosing the Custom installation here. Now in the Disk Partitioning Setup screen, select Automatically partition, and click on the Next button.

In the Automatic Partitioning screen, select Keep all partitions and use existing free space, and do not forget to check the Review (and modify if needed) the partitions created checkbox. In my machine, after the automatic partitioning tool modified my partitions, they looked like below:

LVM Volume Groups
  LogVol00                 /                     ext3
  LogVol01                                       swap

Hard Drives
  /dev/hda
    /dev/hda1                                    ntfs

   /dev/hda2                                     extended
     /dev/hda5                                   ntfs
     /dev/hda6                                   vfat

  /dev/hda3                /boot                 ext3
  /dev/hda4                                      LVM PV

/dev/hda is my entire hard drive. /dev/hda1 is my primary partition (Drive C:). /dev/hda2 is the extended partition, which contains drive D: (/dev/hda5) and drive E: (/dev/hda6) on it. Fedora Core needs to create a /boot partition (which is a primary partition) and a LVM (Logical Volume Manager, like an extended partition, but it is also a primary partition) partition. The default LVM layout contains 2 drives, a / (which is a root drive, where all files will be stored) and a swap drive. The size of the swap drive is depending on your RAM. If your RAM is 256 megabytes, then the swap partition will be double in size, 512 megabytes. swap drives acts like Windows pagefile. Fedora Core drives do not have drive letters for logical drives like Windows, they have numbers corresponding to the disk partition, such as /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2 and so on. Now click on the Next button to proceed to the next screen.

In the Boot Loader Configuration screen, you can see that Fedora Core /dev/VolGroup/LogVol00 is labeled for the default boot and Other /dev/hda1 is labeled for optional boot. It is actually the Windows boot. You can select the Other /dev/hda1 label, then click on the Edit button on the right and rename it whatever you like. You can also make it default by clicking on the Default checkbox. You should check the Use a boot loader password and give a password for it. See a screenshot below:




Optional Step:
Follow this step only if you want the Windows NT boot loader to work instead of GRUB boot loader. GRUB is Fedora Core's default boot loader. Skip this step, if you are happy with GRUB. In the Boot Loader Configuration screen, check the Configure advanced boot loader options checkbox and click on the Next button. In the next screen, you will see the GRUB boot loader will be installed on the MBR (Master Boot Record e.g. /dev/hda1). It means it will be installed on your Windows active primary partition. Click on the second option to install it on the first sector of your boot partition. In my machine, it is on /dev/hda3. You must also follow the Configuring Windows boot loader section at the end of this tutorial.

Click on the next button. Now in the Network Configuration wizard, you will see your network device, labeled as eth0 (assuming that you have got an ethernet device installed on your system). Click on the Edit button on the right, and then disable the option Automatically via DHCP. Enter your IP address and SUBNET MASK properly and click Ok. Now set your Hostname, GATEWAY address and DNS settings properly and click on the Next button.

The next screen is the Firewall Configuration screen. You should enable firewall and enable SELinux for a secure system. If you planned to run a server, then check appropriate services to enable it. Click on the Next button. Select your time zone in the Time Zone Selection screen. You can either select it from the world map or from the listbox. Click on the Next button to continue.

Now in the Set Root Password screen, set your administrative password. In a Unix environment, an Administrator is called as a root (All letters in small caps). Click on the Next button. Now the Package Group Selection screen will appear. You can select Everything at the bottom of the screen, which will take about 6.9 gigabytes of your disk space. For a graphical installation, you must select the X Window System along with the GNOME Desktop Environment or the KDE (K Desktop Environment) or you can select both. See a screenshot below:




Do not worry about the packages too much now. You can add or remove them later with a friendly graphical interface. Click on the Next button to continue. The About To Install screen is the final setup screen. After clicking on the Next button, it will give you three options, just click on the Continue button. The installation will begin. You need to change discs when it asks. After finishing the installation, click on the Reboot button.

Congratulations! You just successfully installed Fedora Core 4 with Windows XP. After rebooting your machine (If you followed the Optional Step above, you must complete Configuring Windows boot loader section now. Come back here after completing that section), you will get a screen saying something like; Press any key to enter the menu. Press any key, choose Fedora Core (2.6.11-1.1286_FC4) from the list and press Enter. Wait for a few minutes, a post installation wizard will come up like Windows XP. Complete those steps (e.g. License agreement, configuring sound card, screen resolution etc) carefully. You should create a general user account for your daily use. Now in the Login screen, enter your user name, press Enter, and then your password, and press Enter. You are now in the Linux environment. The default desktop environment of Fedora Core 4 is GNOME.


Step-4: Configuring Windows boot loader
If you followed the Optional Step above, you must complete this section. Otherwise, you can not boot into Fedora Core 4. Your Windows XP will always boot directly without giving you any option.

Insert your Fedora Core 4 disc-1 into your CD ROM drive and reboot your machine. At the boot: _ prompt, type linux rescue and press Enter. Wait for a few seconds, the Anaconda installer will ask you for the language selection, press Enter for English. Then press Enter again for U.S. English keyboard. It will ask you for network setup, select No and press Enter. Wait another few seconds, it will give you some messages, use the Enter key to confirm them. Now you are in a prompt like sh-3.00#. Type the command below and press Enter:

sh-3.00# chroot /mnt/sysimage

You must know the label of your boot partition, it is /dev/hda3 on my machine. Type df to see your boot partition. Now type the command below and press Enter:

sh-3.00# dd if=/dev/hda3 of=boot.lnx bs=512 count=1

You will see 1+0 records in, 1+0 records out. The previous command creates a file named boot.lnx of 512 bytes in size. Type ls to view that file. Now insert a formatted floppy disc into your floppy disk drive. Type the command below and press Enter:

sh-3.00# mcopy boot.lnx a:

You can copy the file into your FAT32 partition, but before doing that you need to mount your FAT32 partition. My FAT32 partition is /dev/hda6. So the mount command will be something like:

sh-3.00# mount /dev/hda6 /mnt -t vfat -o umask=777

Now you can copy the file into your FAT32 partition with this simple command:

sh-3.00# mcopy boot.lnx /mnt

Now type exit, press Enter, then type exit again and press Enter. Your machine will reboot now. Login to Windows XP, open My Computer, then copy the file named boot.lnx from the floppy disc to drive C: . Select and right click on the file and select it's Properties. If the file is checked as Read-only, uncheck it and click on the Ok button. Now open the boot.ini file with Notepad (If you can not see it, you need to check Show all hidden files and folders from Tools -> Folder Options -> View). Now insert the line C:\boot.lnx="Red Hat Fedora Core 4" (You can use any name you like lebeling it) at the end of the file. See a screenshot below:




You can also set the timeout property 30 to -1, the boot loader menu will not disappear until you select an operating system from the menu and press Enter. Now save the file and close it. Reboot your machine and you will get a Windows boot loader menu with Windows XP and Fedora Core 4 listed on it. Select Red Hat Fedora Core 4 from the menu and press Enter. Now complete the steps you left in STEP-3.

If you do not want the GRUB boot loader to appear at all (Because you are now using the Windows NT boot loader and you do not need GRUB at all), you need to follow some more steps. Login in to Fedora Core 4 as a root user. Open a text editor, then open the file /boot/grub/grub.conf from the text editor. You need to set the timeout property 5 to 0 (highlighted in the image). See a screenshot below:




Now save the file and close it. Reboot your machine and you will never see the GRUB boot loader again.

Fedora Core is able to read and write into Windows FAT32 file systems after mounting them properly. You do not need to install third party softwares. However, if you want to access Windows NTFS file systems from Fedora Core, you will need to install third party softwares. This website can help you a lot http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net.


Other Helpful Resources:
http://fedora.redhat.com
http://forums.fedoraforum.org