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dual boot win 7 & CentOs

Posted: 2011/10/24 04:44:57
by farshad
i have an Asus laptop with win 7 Professional on it. i would like to install Centos too. now i want to see if it makes any problems for my Win? i am totally new here on CentOs so actually everything is on Win!!! please help me and show me the way how i can do it.
thanks
farshad

dual boot win 7 & CentOs

Posted: 2011/10/25 00:06:54
by pschaff
Welcome to the CentOS fora. Please see the recommended reading for new users linked in my signature.

If you have empty space on the hard drive for CentOS as unpartitioned space, or as Linux partition[s], then a standard install will put a GRUB entry for Windows into the boot options ("title Other" unless you edit it during the install). If this does not fit your situation then please provide more details so we can assist you.

Re: dual boot win 7 & CentOs

Posted: 2011/10/25 12:28:37
by farshad
Thanks Phil,
i have 3 partitions on my laptop: C:116G for my OS which is win7, D:146G for my documents and E:181G for my programs.
i can change the sizes of D, and E, also i can use a virtual machine. which one do you suggest.
I am totally new on Linux based software.

thanks,
Farshad

Re: dual boot win 7 & CentOs

Posted: 2011/10/25 12:51:23
by pschaff
Hard to advise as I don't know your requirements nor the details of drives/partitions and potential free space. If you are just experimenting, then a virtual machine installation would be the least likely to cause any issues with your Windows install. Anything else would apparently require shrinking one or more existing partitions to make room - certainly possible, but always carries some element of risk. If you do decide to shrink Windows (presumably NTFS) partitions some tool other than the Anaconda installer is required. It will not manipulate Windows partitions.

Re: dual boot win 7 & CentOs

Posted: 2011/10/25 13:35:29
by farshad
Thanks Phil,
enclosed you can find the situation of my HDD.
i want to shift from windows to linux. we present an European company. they have a software which can run both on linux and windows. the software runs on Redhat and Centos. i think as you also mentioned the virtual machine is safer.

best regards,
farshad

Re: dual boot win 7 & CentOs

Posted: 2011/10/25 15:38:33
by pschaff
If you were trying to use the forum attachment function, it is permanently broken. Please just paste disk information in the edit window - surrounded by [code] ... [/code] tags if it needs to be properly formatted.

Re: dual boot win 7 & CentOs

Posted: 2011/10/25 18:20:15
by farshad
my hdd information is as follows:
C:75GB free of 116GB this is my OS partition. NTFS formatted.
D: 130GB free of 146GB. this is my documents partition. NTFS formatted.
E: 179BG free of 181GB. this is my program partition. NTFS formatted.

wish this can help you to get an idea about my computer.
thanks,
farshad

Re: dual boot win 7 & CentOs

Posted: 2011/10/25 19:56:40
by pschaff
That does not tell us if those partitions are on a single or multiple disks, nor if they are primary or extended. Booting from a CentOS LiveCD or DVD would allow you to [url=http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=28723&forum=54]provide more information about your system[/url] such as output from "fdisk -l". It will also help test your system hardware for CentOS compatibility. Although you are posting in a CentOS-5 forum you may want to consider the more "modern" CentOS-6 unless you have good reason to do otherwise.

All this is moot if doing a virtual machine install, as the virtual disk[s] will utilize space in your existing filesystems.