Windows partition?

[Mauriat Miranda]

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Paul <paul at all-the-johnsons.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've been trying to install XP using qemu for almost 24 hours now. I
> have one specific task that I need XP for (Winforms design). I can't get
> Visual C# 2005 to work under Wine or Crossover Office so I need to get
> something working.

I would recommend VirtualBox over qemu.  You don't need hardware
virtualization support in VB.  Or try KVM, but VB seems pretty easy to
setup.

> I have a shed load of space on a secondary drive, so I was thinking of
> making a 20Gb partition on it (as FAT32), booting from an XP disc and
> installing onto there.

I would recommend NTFS over FAT32.  Keep in mind NTFS is read/write
supported in Fedora.

> I don't know if it will be a problem installing to a secondary drive
> rather than primary, so advise is needed here. Is it safe to do this or
> am I going to trash things by doing it?

Be very careful.  I think XP will automatically write the NTLDR
(Windows boot system) to the primary drive and primary partition even
if you install elsewhere.  So you might possible destroy your Fedora
GRUB (your Fedora data/partitions should be safe).

You might consider unplugging the first drive when installing XP.  So
you don't accidentally overwrite something on the main drive.  That
being said it might be least destructive to have XP on the first
partition on the 2nd drive (assuming that's possible).

You can always later use GRUB to chainload.  Adding XP to boot from
GRUB is very simple 2 lines to '/boot/grub/grub.conf'

title Windows XP
        rootnoverify (hd1,0)
        chainloader +1

hd1 = 2nd drive (hd0 would be first)
0 = first partition

I have not done this in a long time, but was successful in the past.

-- 
Mauriat Miranda
http://www.mjmwired.net/linux