[Dapper Dan]

Hello All,

I've got three Linux distros on my box, and between the problems caused by Qtparted, (After initially partitioning with Partition Magic in the very beginning), my hard drive and grub.conf are a mess.

Anyway, I bought a Western Digital 120 GB external USB drive, formatted it with ReiserFS and have transferred all my /home directories from the three distros, (Gentoo, SuSE 9.1 and Mandrake 9.1) over to it.

Since I still have licensed copies of XP, and Partition Magic 8, I thought it might be a good choice to nuke and pave my drive and start over by installing XP so as to have access to Partition Magic to create partitions as needed. (I have to give credit where credit is due. Partition Magic is the best partitioning utility I've ever used, regardless of O.S.)

The problem is, I've never installed XP, so I need to ask what will probably be some really dumb questions:

1. Will a new XP install wipe my drive and format with NTFS automatically?

2. Will XP overwrite the MBR as 98SE does?

3. Will I have to have a working network connection to install?

4.Other than typing in the product key, will my newly installed XP contact Microsoft for some sort of substantiation procedure so I can use it?

5. Is there a way to make a boot floppy with XP in case something goes amiss?

Questions 3 and 4 are important in that I have four XP install disks still new in the package that came with four different computers and I'm not sure which goes with which box. I wouldn't want to do anything against the licensing agreement.

Thanks for taking the time to read, and any help will be appreciated.

[ross_aveling]

Originally posted by Dapper Dan:

Quote:

1. Will a new XP install wipe my drive and format with NTFS automatically?

No, not at all. The setup routine has a decent enough partition manager. You can create new partitions and review existing ones. It gives you the option to leave the file system of partitions as they are or to format as FAT, FAT32 or NTFS.

Quote:

2. Will XP overwrite the MBR as 98SE does?

Yes.

Quote:

3. Will I have to have a working network connection to install?

Not as such. If XP needs activating (see below) you'll need internet access to complete the procedure (unless you activate over the phone).

Quote:

4.Other than typing in the product key, will my newly installed XP contact Microsoft for some sort of substantiation procedure so I can use it?

It depends on the edition of XP. Volume license versions do not need to be activated, retail and OEM ones do.

Quote:

5. Is there a way to make a boot floppy with XP in case something goes amiss?

You can boot of the XP CD and use a facility called the Recovery Console. It presents you with a CLI that allows you to perform maintainance tasks such as repairing MBR's, enable or disable system services etc. You can read up on it here.

Having said that, am I right in saying you wish to use XP only to be able to access Partition Magic 8.0. If so, there is an setup program on the PM8 install CD that let's you create a floppy disk set [2 disks] that enables you to boot off them and run PM8 from there (GUI screens and all). You do have to have access to a Windows machine to be able to create the disks though; if you can get hold of a Windows PC it may save you a lot of hassle.

Hope I was of help to you.

[Dapper Dan]

That helps a great deal, thanks!

[Jerry Atrik]

if u read thru dosfreaks slipstream guide there is a lot of helpful tips.