About to install but one question.

[SMR]

My previous experience with partitioning has taught me to be very cautious when  attempting it.  My harddisk is set up like this:
Partition 1 - 30MB FAT32 drive - contains autoexec.bat and boot.ini and all that jazz
Partition 2 - 75GB NTFS drive with no OS (used to have Windows 2k but I deleted it since it stopped booting for some odd M$ reason)
Partition 3 - 73GB NTFS with XP Pro

I'm planning on deleting partition 2 and installing Vector there.  In theory, will this work without fail (IE, will XP's boot entry automatically be put into Lilo and I will be able to boot XP from Lilo without trouble)?

[MikeCindi]

Yes, that should work. If you put lilo or grub in the MBR then VL's setup SHOULD detect and allow you to boot XP from partition 1 (where your Windows boot files are located). I personally use bootpart (see this thread: http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1073.msg17052#msg17052) and put lilo in the the bootsector of my linux root partition.
HTH,
Mike

[YeOldeFarte]

     Greetings!  I am a newish Vector user, and I can't refuse to suggest one of the nicest features of Vector.  I use VectorLinux 5.8 SOHO, and I place the LILO bootloader on a floppy disk.  This way it does not interfere with the Windows bootloader, and it really doesn't matter whether  LILO sees Windows or not.  You just have to make sure that you set the BIOS to boot from floppy before hard drive.  When you want Vector you stick in the floppy.  When you want Windows you remove the floppy.  It works like a charm.
     Hope this helps.

[rbistolfi]

Hi, YeOldeFarte, good tip. I used to give it too, but looks like the rest of the world dropped the floppy disks. A lot of machines are shipped without a floppy device today, which is ok, since the portable usb devices are great and more secure. I dont use floppys at all, but for booting issues on my own machines.

[GrannyGeek]

My previous experience with partitioning has taught me to be very cautious when  attempting it.  My harddisk is set up like this:
Partition 1 - 30MB FAT32 drive - contains autoexec.bat and boot.ini and all that jazz
Partition 2 - 75GB NTFS drive with no OS (used to have Windows 2k but I deleted it since it stopped booting for some odd M$ reason)
Partition 3 - 73GB NTFS with XP Pro

I'm planning on deleting partition 2 and installing Vector there.  In theory, will this work without fail (IE, will XP's boot entry automatically be put into Lilo and I will be able to boot XP from Lilo without trouble)?

You might want to take a look at my HowTo on using the XP boot loader to start VectorLinux. It's here:
http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1073.msg6559#msg6559

It's very easy, very reliable, and you can be sure XP will start, as well as VL. If you have a floppy drive, a floppy disk is the safest place to install LILO. But if you don't (like many people today), the XP boot loader is an excellent alternative.
--GrannyGeek

[SMR]

Thanks for the tips guys.

Although to the people who suggested I use a floppy for the bootloader, I don't have one.