Need help with arranging a multi-boot system

[Hamman999]

This should be real simple (hopefully). I have 2 HDDs on my my currently--

1. IBM Deskstar 7200RPM 12GB, which contains:
   • Drive C-- Win98 (2GB)
   • Drive E-- my plethora of games (10GB)
2. Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM 30GB, which contains: (Note: for some reason it doesn't add up quite properly; I'm just using Win2k's reported partition sizes)

• Drive D--My collection of programs (Word, Nero, etc.) and CD images to be burned (11GB)
• Drive F--Windows 2000 Pro (3GB)
• Drive G--Downloads, Documents, and e-mail backups (14GB)

Anyway I'm planning on installing Mandrake Linux, so that I can pick up the basics of Linux before I leave to college (need to learn it to bypass a rudimentary Comp. Science class). So I plan on doing a complete restructuring of my drives. Here what I had in mind:

IBM Drive:
Drive C--Win98SE (2GB)
Drive E--Win2kPro (3GB)
Drive F--Mandrake (2GB)
Drive G--Linux swap (0.5GB)
Drive H--Apps (4.5GB)

WD Drive:
Drive D--Games (10GB)
Drive I--Downloads, etc. (20GB)

Is this setup plausible and practical for my desired setup? Is there anything i should move around on the first drive? The only thing that I am really unsure of is if I can get Linux to boot properly. I had read that it wouldn't boot unless it came before the 1024 cylinder. Also how do I use FDISK to get the Linux drives properly formatted so that I can use Linux on them? Does the Mandrake installer have a special drive converting utility for that purpose? Is there anything else I really need to know before I install Linux that hasn't been posted thousands of times previously on this board? Thanks in advance.

David

 

[konichiwa]

I would recommend making your swap partition the first partition so that it is the fastest, and then your most used operating systems in order.

 

[sciencewhiz]

The last several versions of mandrake get rid of the 1024 cylinder limitation so you should have a problem.

It looks like you are doing some major repartitioning. Fdisk won't cut it unless you are planning on starting from scratch. To do that type of partitioning, you should look into Partition Magic or ranish partition manager. I have always found it best to leave the area that you want linux installed to unpartitioned and then let the installation program do the partitioning for that part.