I am going to install linux suse 10.0 on my XP machine, does it need to format my drive or not?
Saturday, July 24th, 2010 at
19:38
I don’t want the drive to be formatted, does it actually need to be??
Filed under: SUSE
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I’m afraid yes since Linux GRUB Loader must overwrite Windows MBR so you need to install Linux first. Otherwise you can use virtual to run Linux from your XP like Virtual PC http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/virtualpc/default.mspx or VMware http://vmware.com. This is the list of OS than can run in Virtual PC http://vpc.visualwin.com/
Part of it at least. The installer will offer you the option by default of re-sizing the C: drive, then formatting the bit it needs. You should back up your data first to be safe, although I have never seen it fail. When it reboots to Windows the first time it will probably run chkdsk, do NOT interrupt this or you end up with no Windows OS.