preparing a windows machine for dual booting

[Steve Holmes]

Speaking of HP laptops, I own such a fine machine but they used up all
four primary partitions for windows, HP's inaccessible restore disk
stuff, a boot part and some other partition I can't remember the name
of.  I would like to set that one up to be a dual boot but I can't be
sure what partitions I can safely delete without screwing up the
environment.  The main windows partition seems to be in /dev/sda1; not
sda0.  Also, I would like to possibly replace the drive and some how
just reload back what windows stuff I have so I don't have to go out
and buy a new install disk of Win although that might be the
ultimately best way to restore windows on a new drive.  I would
consider a vertual machine approach but no matter, I need to have
linux running on that drive.  I do not want to run linux under a
windows host.

On 10/26/11, Christopher Moore <chris.w1gm at gmail.com> wrote:
> Chuck,
> You'll probably have ample room on the drive to allocate a swap and
> linux partitions.  Windows 7 comes with a tool to resize partitions.
> You can get the free NVDA screen reader which works quite well with
> windows these days.
>
> Once you've resized your windows partition, you should be able to boot
> the talking Arch which can be copied to a USB stick if your laptop
> doesn't have a CD drive.  You'll also need to think about how to dual
> boot the system once linux is installed.  Some folks put the grub boot
> loader in the MBR.  Another approach which would preserve your MBR is to
> put grub on the linux partition and add an entry to the windows boot
> menu for your linux.  This latter approach is what I will be doing with
> my HP laptop.
>
> So, there are several options, and don't rush into anything without
> thinking it through.  Also, be sure to make backup DVDs of your laptop
> so that you don't inadvertently blow away your windows installation
> without a backup plan in place.
>
> LOL
> Chris
>
> On 10/24/2011 4:14 PM, Chuck Hallenbeck wrote:
>> Hi Greg,
>>
>> Many thanks for that outline, I'm sure it will do the trick here.
>>
>> You are right about my Windows aversion, in fact it's a GUI aversion,
>> but I need to keep my options open this time for a number of reasons.
>>
>> 1. I may be about to receive a gift of a Thinkpad laptop of an as
>> yet unknown model, and the initial investment in the Windows software
>> is unavoidable.  To blow it away without considering its possible uses
>> seems unnecessarily hardnowed, assuming the hardware has sufficient disk
>> space to support both OS's.
>>
>>   2. Also, I've been using Verizon DSL for some months now, and my
>>   available browsers allow me to do most, but not all, of the things I
>>   would like to do with their internet gateway (modem+router).  Verizon no
>>   longer comes with a CD, one needs to download the modem administrative
>>   software from Verizon, and Verizon is as hardnose about Windows as I
>>   am about Linux. One of us needs to blink.
>>
>>   3. Third, I recently acquired a wireless printer/scanner/fax unit with
>> uncertain support in Linux for the scanner section, and Windows supports
>> the entire unit just fine.
>>
>>   4. Finally, it is possible that I might have to time-share access to the
>> Thinkpad with my wife, who is a very occasional user with only minimal
>> Windows skills and a bad attitude toward computers.  There will be no
>> new learning going on in our house!
>>
>> Otherwise, you are absolutely correct, I would blow the sucker away
>> without a second thought.
>>
>> Thanks for that rundown, it's just what I needed.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Chuck in Hudson.
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