jimras

That's what I did Then I edited the boot loader's script and listed Windows first and now that's the default. Thanks for the help Jim

I looked in the boot directory and found a folder named Grub and opened that one but I didn't find a file called grub.conf in there. Maybe it has something with doing it "as root" I don't know what that means. Forgive a noobie for his stupidity. What do I need to do to be this "root"

Right now, when booting the computer, booting into Linux is the default. Is there a way to change this so that Windows will be the default instead?

I don't know I just wondered in case I wanted to try a different distro. Thanks............

Now that I have a drive dedicated to Linux, If I want to try a different distro, do I have to somehow delete the existing one first? Will the install program automatically do this for me? I currently have Mandrake 10.1 on there. It installed a bootloader into my MBR. Do I have to uninstall this too or does the new install take care of this as well. Thanks, friends.

So can somebody tell me something here and this might be a really STUPID Noobie question, too. There are SO many distros available. What are the advantages to the different ones? are there specific differences or are they all pretty much the same?

Not a problem, shanenin I just washed my hands and can't do a thing with them Can't seem to type right all the time. Thanks for all the help everybody. I'm looking forward to learning a lot!!!

Yeah.....that's not a problem The bootloader thingie that Linus installed works just fine

I just rebooted to Window$ to make sure it still worked fine and it booted just fine, too. Whew!!! One thing, though..... Explorer doesn't recognize the HD that I installed Linux on. Is this normal?? All of a sudden, drive F: dissapeared!!

Whoopie I did it I'm posting this from the Mozilla browser running under Mandrake 10.1 Whoo Hoo!!!!

Well, I am just about ready to take the big Linux plunge!! I have downloaded the three ISO's for Mandrake 10.1 and burned them to CDs. BTW--thanks for the tip about the Deep Burner program....I LOVE it!! I have the second 80 Gig HD all cleaned off and formatted and ready to go. A couple of quick questions---I assume that you boot from CD 1 to install, correct??? The other question I had asked long ago and never did get a clear answer to it. Can I install EVERYTHING on the second HD and then boot from that drive by selecting HD1 in the BIOS for the boot to Linux (and keep HD0 for Windows rather

Well, it's kind of unusual that I would figure out this problem by myself but I did it. It turns out that after the reinstall, the motherboard utilities disk was installing a driver that caused a MAJOR conflict and after thinking about this, I cleaned off the HD and did ANOTHER reinstall (I've done so many that I almost have the product key memorized!) After this last install, the ONLY driver that I let the motherboard utilities CD install was the one to get the onboard soundcard working. Now everything checks out fine. FINALLY!!!!!!!!! I hope somebody can learn from MY mistakes!!

Not sure if this should be posted here or under Windows Support. If I'm posting in the wrong area, I apologise!! Well, something has changed and now I can't play any of my games. I have pretty well narrowed it down to a conflict with DirectX and/or drivers. My system is Athalon 2500+ (1.8 Ghz) with 512 RAM and nVidea 5200 board with 128MG RAM on board. All of sudden, my games wouldn't boot and run and I tried everything I could think of to get things running again including Reformat and reinstalling everything. I have tried running dxdiag.exe and it hung up the first time so I restarted ever

OK Makes sense, I guess. Do both Mandrake and Red Hat have similar installers built into the CD's?? I'm sorry to ask such simple questions, but I have NO experience installing Linux at all. I've been a windows prisoner ever since DOS bit the dust!! I didn't like 95 and I didn't like 98 and I sure as heck didn't like 2000 I think that the think that I didn't like is the lack of control over what's going on. With DOS I liked working from the command line.

I have tried and enjoyed playing around with Knoppix running it from the CD I am ready to give Mandrake or Red Hat a try. My question is this. Since these have to be installed on the HD, I am concerned about screwing up my windows installation. I have a second 80 Gig HD in the machine that is basically just sitting there with not much on in. I could clean that off and then install the Linux onto that drive. Now--here's the question. Should I just use the BIOS to decide which HD to boot from or should I set up a dual boot?? I have no experience with setting up a second OS on a computer an

Thanks for all the inputl, everybody. I finally settled on Deep Burner. It seems to do everything I want it to, and it's FREE!!!! Thanks again. Jim

Way to go Liz!! I'm glad you had an easier time than I did. If you have any probs, post em and we'll all try to help!!! Jim

Hi guys The Startup.exe program that I referred to is by Mike Lin and the complete title is "Startup Control Panel 2.8 by Mike Lin You can find it here: www.mlin.net Hope this helps. Jim

Yeah...... I signed up, too. Thanks for the tip

Hi Handplane I did what you said but the choices in the startup box were automatic, manual, or disabled The one that was already there was automatic so I left it alone

HI Blim I use a program called "startup.exe" and this lets me know what's loaded and where. I unchecked the box for that process and it doesn't load anymore and everything seems to be fine.

Well, right now everything is working OK except for not being able to open the security panel. If I just leave that alone, then everything else seems to be working fine. Now Windows XP loads to desktop in about 35 seconds from switch on. This is good!! I have found a couple of games that I used to play don't seem to work right at this time but I should be able to work out the conflicts there. All in all, I guess the SP2 was successful. Time will tell.............

No, I hadn't seen that Thanks

Well, I FINALLY got SP 2 installed and got it to work on my box. I also got the 18 updates to finally download and install, too, so my OS is finally up to date. Those of you that are regulars have seen my posts about my troubles in getting this done. There are still a couple of little glitches yet. If I try to open the security center in the control panel, I get ONLY the title bar showing on the screen that says "security center" and then everything freezes up for about 10 seconds and then the computer shuts itself off and reboots itself. Well, I guess I just won't try to open the security

Thanks for that input. My wife has McAfee on her computer which is only 2 months old. It came with WinXP Home with SP2 already installed and McAfee's Security suite as well. I like that but I'm cheap and don't want to pay for something if I can get it for free. Thanks again............Jim