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How To Make Dual Booting A (Bigger) Pain
the_phenom writes "Thinking of dual-booting your Windoze XP 17" Toshiba P25 laptop? Think again - this one 'uses a DVD with an already setup version of Windows XP Home and then transfers it to the notebook's hard drive,' preventing the normal setup procedure and thus, dual-booting." This reminds me of the unfriendly practice on some PC builders' parts of including an OS "backup" only on a hard-drive partition.
They also included the Windows drivers for the hardware there, too. I had to wipe the drive and do a Ghost image install of Win2k, and only after I'd wiped both(?!) partitions on the drive did it occur to me that I needed one of them to get all the hardware working. I eventually got an ethernet driver re-assembled from floppies and got on the internet to download the rest. That's 2 hours of my life I'll never get back. . .
You are not the customer.
but can't you install linux after windows is already installed? like... use partition magic or something to resize and create a new partition and install linux on that? i havn't done this, but I'm surprised it would really be a problem.
Since when are Windows CDs a requirement for dual booting? I've installed a dual boot solution just fine WITHOUT any Windows CDs. That's on 98se, 2k and XP Pro. Worked like a dream and I simply did NOT need the CD, nor can I think of any situation where I WOULD need the CD. (then again, it's 5 am in the morning, I think I can barely be qualified as sentient atm)
So to put it in a simple way:
What's the fecking problem!?
Hate me!
How is this news? Tosh and other vendors have been selling PCs with only a "recovery CD" that wipes everything for years.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
One of my HP machines had a similar setup where Windows 98 (one of my older machines) was distributed as an image on 2 "HP Recovery CDs".
To install Linux on these boxes, I simply resized the Windows 98 partition down to 2 GB and used the other 16GB of freespace to install Linux.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
How is this any different from the "system recovery" disks that have been shipping with laptops for years. I can't remember when I last bought a laptop that came with just a plain OS install disk.
Use Partition Magic to shrink the XP partition and create space for a Linux partition. How is this any different than thousands of other computer systems out there that come with a rescue disk to rebuild the system to the factory installed image? Yes, for the 1% of users that want to dual boot it will be a minor pain. For the other 99% of the users a rescue image like that is a godsend and saves support costs for the company. If the computer is completely hosed, stick the DVD in and reformat/reload. No need to pay a computer geek to work his magic on your broken Windows box.
If it's a regular Windows installation on an NTFS disk you can still install Linux by resizing. You can use either Partition Magick or the first disk of the Mandrake 9.1 set to resize the NTFS disk. Make sure to defrag the NTFS partition from within Windows first before doing this procedure or else the contents will be destroyed.
The problem seems to be that the image is the size of the disk so reinstallation of Windows, once Linux is already installed, will overwrite all partitions. It's just a complete disk image on the DVD. One workaround is to do the Windows installation, install Linux, use something like g4u to create a copy of your disk.
Or, use dd from the Linux partition to copy the Windows image once it's all installed.
Almost every laptop sold nowadays only come with restore cds, they never EVER come with a full copy of windows. HECK nowadays HP and Compaqs just have a partition called RESTORE PARTITION, and thats the only way to restore them because they come with NO DISKS! You have to contact HP or COMPAQ to request them for a small fee. And even then, they are only restore cds. Basicly your just paying for a licence. Which means legally you can go to Kazaa and download a Win2k ISO and just use the licence you payed for. Simple....
keanmarine.com
It isn't that hard. I had to do this with my Dell. Most systems now come with "image restore" disks instead of installation disks for software piracry reasons.
Now, to dual-boot all you have to do is:
1) resize your windows partition using any available tool (I purchased partition magic).
2) Install linux in the newly created free space.
3) Put the bootloader (I'm partial to Grub now) into the MBR.
And you're off to the races!
Of course, this means that if your windows partition goes south you have to backup your linux partition and start from scratch, but that's the risk you take.
It doesn't stop you from installing linux, it doesn't stop you from dual-booting. It is simply a quick and easy way to install windows for a fixed hardware platform.
Jason Pollock
Wow, I had no idea an Apple laptop would dual boot Windows and Linux!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
here...r esize.htm l
http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfs
Now we just have to pour some resource into it.
Actually, the HPaq EVO D510's we've got at work came with a recovery CD that you're supposed to start with and a WinXP Pro CD that you put in during the recovery. If you just put in the XP CD, it boots and installs normally. I'm not sure if it actually works, because there is no key on the CD case, but I have been able to get as far as the point where it asks for the key. I suppose the recovery CD handles that part. If you could find out what the key is that they're using (I doubt it's the FCKGW one), you might be able to install XP clean.
;-).
Or, as clean as is possible
Anyway, maybe it's possible to just put in the OS CD, if you get that option with other vendors.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
Why not just borrow a full install disk of XP from a friend? Surely this is a good example of fair use, considering you already own a license to the operating system, albeit a different copy.
[ home ]
As others have stated, this is a non-issue.
My Compaq Presario 2715US came with Windows XP on a series of three CD's that will wipe everything before putting them back on. As far as I know, this is fairly common practice nowadays. The twist here is that all of the Microsoft applications (XP and Works) and the drivers are within the image, all of the other apps that came with it (WinDVD, Symantec Anti-Virus, etc.) are included on their own CD's.
It's easy to make a dual-boot. Resize the NTFS partition, and then install Linux into the empty space. GRUB or LILO will then install into the MBR, and presto, dual-boot!
The thing that I hate about XP versus Windows 2000 (and earlier, I believe) is that XP seems to deliberately clobber the MBR. For example, if I install Linux (and GRUB or LILO), then install XP afterwards, GRUB/LILO is gone, I have to use a boot-disk to get back into Linux. This pisses me off to no end.
As for those images... If you get Windows 2000 or Windows XP images, you've almost got a full-bootable copy. The image for my laptop was made with (I think) DriveImage, and I was able to get an evaulation copy of it, and it allowed me to extract the i386 (CABs) directory. From there, I just had to borrow a few files (like setup.exe, etc.) from a friends' XP installation CD (which indicently came with a Dell laptop he bought), and make it bootable according to Bink's pageOf course, not knowing fully about how Windows XP's activation works, I didn't want to just make a copy of his XP install CD, in case it was keyed for a Dell laptop. And, just in case, it somehow cut him off. :)
-- Joe
Why do people think this is some sneaky move, and look at MS. It's simple WinXP pro, for example, is 1.6gig installed, thats almost a gig bigger then a normal disk. So install takes a long time as it resets everything up. Having it on a dvd not compressed and allready set up makes perfect sense. It's for a laptop, very static hardware. For a regular user being able to put a disk in and it copys everything over and your good to go is a great thing. I also bet this was more of toshiba idea then MS's. They arn't building these things with the intent of dual boot, just doesn't make sense to worry about something 0.01% of those who buy one will do. Why not make it nicer for the 99.99 percent that will use it like normal.
Also to other, I don't think any PC maker has included a straight off the shelf version of windows in nearly a decade. No computer I have bought or seen bought by someone had a true real version of windows with it. When you buy a computer from any OEM it comes with a quasi version of windows. This is no differant. Except if the HD crahses of have to re-install you can now do it in a few minutes instead of over an hour.
Dell lets you go through a standard OS install. And it is because of OEM licensing. M$ apparently doesn't produce OEM CDs for their OEMs, telling them to make their own. Dell's CD simply checks to make sure you have a Dell BIOS on the system, so you can only use the CDs on other Dells (vendor-specific, not model-specific).
The only Windows XP I know about is the "Devilsown" edition. Is this "home" thing some new release I need to get from IRC?
The new 17" Toshiba comes with a Windows DVD that basically mirror copies itself onto the hard drive (ghosting). Their is no interaction with the user so he can't specify partitions and the like. So he can't dual boot because all the partition is occupied by Windows and can't be changed (to his viewpoint). He can't format the HD and install Linux first because the Windows DVD will simply wipe out the HD and install Windows. Perhaps the author is doing it the only way he knows.
As others pointed out, Partition Magic will allow him to change the partition and allow him to install a second OS. I would think that the author should have asked for some help before writing the article. I've never bought a system with a recovery disk, but then again the last system I bought and did not build was years ago. It's understandable about his frustration if he didn't know any better.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I have a Toshiba laptop with the same recovery disks (3 CD's instead of the DVD, but the same concept).
It was a bit of a pain at first, as I did have to buy System Commander (which is very cool as a boot-loader and as a utility) to get around this. Since the install image is NTFS you'll need Partition magic 7 or 8 or SC7. Not sure if there is a freeware utility to munge NTFS partitions.
Once up and running, I took a snapshot of the resized XP partition and now I don't need the recovery disks. It is nice though that Toshiba installs all of the drivers for you, and that the system works out of the box after re-imaging.
As for running another O/S on this laptop, Linux and Solaris are VERY well supported, so I don't think I'd give up this laptop just cause of this slight inconvenience. The laptop is a 1415-S173 Celeron 1.8GHz which has a beautiful screen and was $850.00 new with rebate and 512MB. In short, it kicks price/performance ass.
Contrary to popular belief, life is not a bitch. It is far far worse.
Including CDs with the notebook adds about a week more lead time since they need to be pressed and packaged with the rest of the notebook. This matters when the retail shelf life of a notebook model is about 3 months. Now, multiply by multiple models and variations, and take into account the added supply chain requirements, and it could easily be cheaper to one-off CDs on demand, which could include updated drivers, etc.
-M5B
I read this article yesterday. I promptly emailed the editor. Here is a copy of my email.
r esize. html
To Whom it May Concern:
I have recently read an article on your website claiming there is no way
to set up a dual-boot system on the new toshiba laptop. This is not true.
There are now non-destructive ntfs filesystem resizing tools for linux.
I personally used a live-CD to resize my windows partition before installing
debian. I know that Mandrake comes with the tools by default and has the
option for resizing windows partitions (NTFS) from the installer.
here is a link to the FAQ:
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs
I hope you can attach an editor's note so future readers will not be
misled by this article.
thank you,
david tansey
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
Here's some stuff you wouldn't realize until you made the mistake of buying one.
1.) Toshiba's now come with a "BIOS-less" system which means that windows controls all the hardware and you can change NONE of the settings, which makes installing linux a real pain in the ass, but it is still possible.
2.) Toshiba's have a problem of having their own "helping" software that when you boot with a net connection it will call home and download "updates" automatically for you. One such update was for my model to cut the clock speed in half.
3.) Every toshiba I've owned has horrible battery life, you might as well consider them a computer with a built in UPS and easy to move around, and not a "portable laptop".
4.) Toshiba has a little problem with laptops overheating (hence the lawsuit) and certain parts melting.
5.) Toshiba's only selling point is their spec sheets, but as far as being a good purchase you're in for some real problems down the road, I have yet to meet someone who hasn't had some part of their toshiba fall apart and cost less than $100 to fix.
All-in-all these laptops aren't that great, while they pack the latest and greatest they aren't exactly stellar machines. Overheating and hardware failures are certainly nothing new to toshiba's and I would recommend everyone read reviews of ANY laptop model out there.
Remember while it may be cool to have a laptop usually there is something sub-par (make sure you check the waruntee by the manufacturer and highest screen resolution). And ALWAYS remember that if you have the opportunity to grab an extended or three year waruntee for less than $150 then go for it. The battery WILL die, you WILL lose a key on the keyboard, you WILL drop it at least once in 3 years, and something WILL die in it. These are not model specific by any means, these are general laptop things.
Hope this helped ...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Really, what's up with that? I think XP Home is made for people for whom this would be a total non-issue.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
My sister and her husband bought an absolutely horrendous piece of crap Packard Bell several years ago. It came with one of these lovely discs that wipe your HD and restor it to a "factory state". (Windows, with a sheitload of annoying, not to mention buggy, PackardBell spam and adware)
At some point the computer finally gave up and collapsed under the weight of all the spamware it had been subjected to. They gave me a call and asked me to come over and take a look at it. I told them I'd pop over later on in the evening. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law decided he'd try to fix it before I got there... with Packard Bell's image disc. Financial records, their digital cam photo collection, my sisters grades (she's a teacher), and a thousand other useful things... Gone. Toast. Whoops! I took a red magic marker (the kind teachers seem to have oodles of) and labelled the offending disc "EVIL!". That was about all I could do.
I'm sure my sister and her husband are not the only tech-unsavvy people who have fallen victim to these image discs of EVIL, and they've never even heard of Linux! These discs have been around for quite some time and I'm sure any manufacturer that uses them gets plenty of tech-support calls as a result. The only reason to use these discs seems to be that they let manufacturers include all sorts of annoying and useless software with their name on it. Frankly, it's a stupid practice and it hurts more than just Linux users.
Pretty simple, really.
vmware rocks! It also saves you the hassle of having to re-install windows all the time - just make a backup of your drive C file after your first windows install!
--jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
Just to totally avoid pure FUD, I feel a few things should be noted:
2.) Toshiba's have a problem of having their own "helping" software that when you boot with a net connection it will call home and download "updates" automatically for you. One such update was for my model to cut the clock speed in half.
This was for Intel's Speedstep tech. This cuts the CPU down when the machine is idle in order to conserv on battery life. Mhz programs will read the CPU as half-speed, because your machine isn't doing anythign else...which leads to:
3.) Every toshiba I've owned has horrible battery life, you might as well consider them a computer with a built in UPS and easy to move around, and not a "portable laptop".
I'm not saying it was right for them to force those updates on you, but I hope you can at least see the connection.
It might be less of a problem from people like Dell rather than smaller firms, but I still will never truts a vendor drive image.
What if they have 'conveniently' installed something like Gator on there for you? Or even their own custom internal reporting tool? No thanks.
Now, I know that installing Windows from scratch can be said to be installing spyware (thanks to WMP etc) - but at least the crap it sends out is well documented and you stand a small chance of finding it and stopping it. With a drive image you have no idea what settings are enabled and what software is installed.
Beep beep.