# new to linux....qu's re. HDD..



## CUSACKOTG (May 6, 2006)

HI there,

just a few silly qu's from a novice user of linux SUSE 10.0-

just been playing with SUSE 10.0 had it working on  a machine as an os on one HDD. I understand that the file system has now changed on the disk given i formatted with SUSE 10.0 (prev. had xp on it) Is there anyway I can now get a win XP os to recognise the disk (read) ? or any windows based system, so that i can format it again and use the disk for anything? 

i'm obviously really  new to the linux thing and trying to fumble my way thru it all. is there a disk utility i can use to wipe SUSE 10.0 off of my disk....if not it doesnt matter. - i like it anyway.

cheers  in advance


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## zekrahminator (May 6, 2006)

Windows won't recognize that the drive has anything on it, but all you have to do is reformat using the tools that come with the OS, diskmanager (right click my computer, click manage, find disk management). Then right click on your drive and format. That should do the trick .


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## CUSACKOTG (May 6, 2006)

thanks sir!

that worked right away- 

these forums are great for people who dont know what they are doing.


cheers

cusack


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## CUSACKOTG (May 7, 2006)

Zekrham......

Another novice question:


Just wanted to ask you about running xp and SUSE 10.0 in the same machine on 2 harddrives. I've had problems with this before, but no problems running each on their own in 2 separate machines. I basically want to have 2 HDD's with these 2 os's on the same machine and just change the boot sequence to have one running or the other. 

Is this possible with the SUSE 10.o distro (or any other linux dist.) or do i have to have sep. machines?


thanks in advance

cusackotg


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## RMcLeod (Jun 2, 2006)

Hi,

Yes this is possible, you just need to configure GRUB properly, I can help you with this!


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## Jimmy 2004 (Jun 5, 2006)

CUSACKOTG said:
			
		

> Zekrham......
> 
> Another novice question:
> 
> ...



Actually, If they are installed on different hard drives it would be much easier to use the boot menu from your bios. But yes, this is definately possible and quite easy!


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## Solaris17 (Jun 6, 2006)

yup yup its possible have it like that right now im using suse 10.1 now on my 120GB and xp is on my 40


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## zekrahminator (Jun 6, 2006)

Whoops, haven't seen this thread in a while...the answer to your question is yeah, it would be alot easier to use 2 hard drives then 2 partitions. Though, that's kinda what RMcLeod, Jimmy2004, and Solaris17 said .


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## Jimmy 2004 (Jun 6, 2006)

Solaris17 said:
			
		

> yup yup its possible have it like that right now im using suse 10.1 now on my 120GB and xp is on my 40



More space for Linux? You must like it. I need to re-install Ubuntu now I have my new hard drive.


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## Poisonsnak (Jun 8, 2006)

I'm using Ubuntu and XP and they do have a little bit of compatibility:

XP can read/write NTFS and FAT32

Ubuntu can read/write all the regular linux file systems and FAT32.  It also can read (not write) NTFS if you install support for it.

So if you want to have a universal partition they can both modify files on make it FAT32.


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