February 2005
Beginner
384 pages
9h 8m
English
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Dual-Booting
What Is Dual-Booting?
Dual-booting is the term commonly used when installing two separate operating systems on the same computer. You can partition a single drive with one operating system on each, use one hard drive for each operating system, or spread things out among a few drives. For example you could dual-boot Linux and Windows or Linux and Mac OS.
Here is how dual-booting works. Your hard drive has on it what is called the Master Boot Record (MBR). The Master Boot Record is located in the first sector of your hard disk. The record contains your partition table as well as information to identify where and how your operating system will boot. Normally, with one operating system, the MBR just shoots right into the OS that you ...