Dual Booting Windows Xp and Backtrack 2

[samir101ng]

Hi,

Am sorry you guys, i know somebody must have talked about this somewhere in this forum but its all confusing. I have a laptop hp dv2130us with windows xp as the default operating system. i have been using the backtrack 2 live cd and want to install it to my hardisk. i have tried using qtparted as suggested in a thread under backtrack 2 to create a partition to install it but it tells me that the drive is ntfs and so read only. now i know that linux uses the fat32 system and can only read the ntfs partion. i installed partition magic under windows and tried to create a partion there also but it tells me that there are one or two paritons that can't be moved. i have a 120GB hard disk drive. i also have a partiton (D for my hp recovery data in case the system crashes. this is the only other partition i have on my hard disk apart from my local disk (C. i want to boot both windows xp and backtrack 2 on the same hard disk. tried searching through the forums but found nothing specific. any help would be appreciated. thank you.

[EnculeurDePoules]

hm if that helps:
I have same than you but:
Instead of installing bactrack 2 I have installed in windows xp the "virtual machine" VMware Workstation" and I emulate Backtrack 2.
Even better I actually emulate the live cd, meaning no installs needed!
Its very good I can even "pause" the VMware, turn it off, remove the cd, turn windows xp off, start in again, reput the cd, "unpause" and here we go, I have everything that I was doing up again!!!

[imported_rokrmc]

You can try this, make backup all your data, remove all partition, create new partition and install xp follow by bt 2..

[purehate]

What I do is use a boot cd such as Hirens 9.3. it will boot just like the live cd and it has about 7 partiton managers on it. I set up every thing that way including formating and swap and the I install backtrack to one partiton. This works flawlesly every time.


Here is the torrent link for hirens boot cd 9.3

[shamanvirtuel]

hiren's rulez again......... really a must have !

[Convergence]

First:
Coming from minor experience with using Ubuntu, I'm used to installing that distro on to my hard drive via the Install icon. I notice that's not an option in BT2, I'm assuming there's a tutorial on these sites on how to go about doing this?

And if so; what boot screen would be preferred by the senior members reading this? I've heard of Gag and GRUB.



Second:

What I do is use a boot cd such as Hirens 9.3. it will boot just like the live cd and it has about 7 partiton managers on it. I set up every thing that way including formating and swap and the I install backtrack to one partiton. This works flawlesly every time.

I took a look at the Hirens web site to get a better understanding of what it is you're doing exactly, and I'm still a little confused. The way it's worded sounds like, to me (someone new), that you have all your OS distros on one boot disk (I'm assuming optical but I can be way off).

Care to shed some light on this?

[InSanCen]

Hirens to the rescue again!

Although i used Partition magic from within Windows (I'm a tech, might as well use it as I own it) to resize my partition. Then booted off the live CD, and specified the BT installer to use the image at / and put the install in /hda5 and the boot info at /hda1.

Edit lilo.conf (plenty of post already done in the forum, search is your friend, i found it within 5 mins on this site), and presto.

[purehate]

What I was saying is that I have a separate boot disk with all my partitioning tools and such on it. I use that to create my partiton table before I even start installing anything. The I start installing operation systems on the partitions I have designated. I may be crazy but I have this idead that if I use the same tool for all formating and partitioning then i have a better chance of success and a lower chance of data loss.

The default boot loader for backtrack is lilo and I see no good reason to use anything different.

The backtrack wiki is probably your best option for choosing a install method. Some times the forums can be confusing with such a broad topic and so many different ways to reach the same goal. The methods on the wiki work well, I've used them all and if you encounter a problem it is much easier for us to help you work through it if we know what method you are using to try and install backtrack.

[Re@lity]

Hi,

Am sorry you guys, i know somebody must have talked about this somewhere in this forum but its all confusing. I have a laptop hp dv2130us with windows xp as the default operating system. i have been using the backtrack 2 live cd and want to install it to my hardisk. i have tried using qtparted as suggested in a thread under backtrack 2 to create a partition to install it but it tells me that the drive is ntfs and so read only. now i know that linux uses the fat32 system and can only read the ntfs partion. i installed partition magic under windows and tried to create a partion there also but it tells me that there are one or two paritons that can't be moved. i have a 120GB hard disk drive. i also have a partiton (D for my hp recovery data in case the system crashes. this is the only other partition i have on my hard disk apart from my local disk (C. i want to boot both windows xp and backtrack 2 on the same hard disk. tried searching through the forums but found nothing specific. any help would be appreciated. thank you.

You need to use your existing Partition Magic to create a bootable floppy/cd to run it from, rather than running it within Windows. If you have the PM CD it's probably bootable anyway, isn't it?
Then you can simply resize your partitions to make some spare room in which to create your new Linux partitions.
BTW - Linux can use fat32 (i.e. bootable usb stick) but for hdd best stick with ext3 imho

[EnculeurDePoules]

Hey!
and what about my suggestion to install it on a virtual machine???
I mean no hassle of uninstalling or creating partitions!