Inspiron 8200 dual boot install

[Cinders]

Hi, I've been waiting to install Gentoo on my laptop and finally have the time, I'm very new to linux and this will be my first install, however, I want to keep XP on as a gaming area. I am simply having a little trouble partitioning my disk. I have read the partitioning sticky, but i think my question is a bit more strait forward. i currently have two partitions on my only disk C. they are hda1 - 31mb and hda2 - 37.22gbNTFS. I would simply like to know if I can partition this disk without reformating or damaming my windows install, which utility can I use and how?

If i cannot partition without reinstalling windows, i believe its recomended I install XP first, therefore, when i install it, where can i make sure my disk is partitioned correctly and ready to install gentoo afterwords.

I've also seen many people are using knoppix -> ntfsresize, so I have also downloaded that live cd, if that helps.

Thanks.

[Cinders]

i just read a post that was put up right before mine...and i'm going to take a stab at my own problem here.
I can use ntfsresize off knoppix to resize my xp partition to a smaller size, then simply make sure i install gentoo to a new parition. I am still unsure however, about huring my xp data...i have around 14gbs free so when i resize i have to make sure i keep enough space for the 25 or so gbs already used....i think...

[jay pettitt]

I'm a little unsure about huring your XP data too. In fact, I've got no idea. But yes, you'll want to make sure you leave enough room for XP and its data plus a bit of slack.

As long as XP doesn't have anything critical installed on that second NTFS volume you should be safe scrapping it and using it for gentoo. XP is quite well behaved when it comes to picking up new drives and loosing old ones.

Using your second existing partition for linux would certainly seem the most straight forward approach. Backing up all your data and reinstalling is never fun. Unless you're a real geek.

[Cinders]

thanks for the help.
Problem is windows critical data is on the second partiton 37gb. Im going to grab qtParted and resize the partition, then create the necessary linux ones. I think this is the safest bet. I backed up the important stuff earlier, so i'm prepared for the worst.

[BitJam]

Cinders,

I've been running Gentoo on an i8200 for a few years and it has all gone pretty well. The first small partition is a Dell thing and is used for one of the sleep modes.

The worst problem I ran into was a cooling problem when doing large emerges. I was getting random errors. The solution was to emerge i8kutils ASAP and use it to just put both fans on full blast for the initial big emerges. Under normal operation I run gkrellm2 on my desktop and use that with the i8krellm plugin to control the fans based on CPU temperature.

I am running a 2.4 kernel and have enabled apm which allows me to do a memory suspend of the laptop. I've been unable to successfully suspend to disk, but perhaps I didn't try hard enough. I've become totally addicted to the suspend feature because it allows me to save energy by turning off my computer when I don't use it, yet I don't lose my place. It is great to be able to start up in a couple of seconds and have all my windows open just the way I left them.

The site: http://linux.siprell.com/index.htm has some good info on installing Gentoo on the i8200. He uses a 2.6 kernel. The last time I checked, he wasn't able to get the suspend to work. I fact I don't think I've ever seen someone claim to get suspend to work on the i8200 with a 2.6 kernel.

[Cinders]

Thanks very much BitJam this is all very helpful. thanks for the link.

[Cinders]

Thanks for all your help, I can now boot both linux and windows xp fine.
I recieve one error when booting linux which doesn't seem to be a huge problem but I don't like errors. After booting Gentoo it goes through all its little checks [ok] [ok] but i get a [!!] on the following line: