[no subject]

<snip>

> The laptop now has WinXPHome on its 40 GBy HDD. The drive is formatted 
> NTFS. I was planning to install Linux right away, probably destroying the 
> WinXP installation, and wanted a way to restore WinXP in case of need 
> (i.e., if I had a warranty claim - or wanted to return the unit.)

Depending on the distro you plan to use, you may not need to destroy the 
existing XP, just reduce the size.

I've got two laptops, both of which came with XP.  They are both 
currently multi-boot with two versions of Linux and XP.  Most newer 
distros are very good about repartitioning the drive and retaining your 
XP installation.

Further, depending on the vendor of the laptop, you can simply recover 
to the existing reduced partition, without affecting the Linux 
partitions.  This is the case on both my Sony Vaio and my HP Pavilion.

As always, YMMV and backup your Linux partitions prior to recovering the XP.

> Now I have passed the return period and see uses for its WinXP over the
> rest of the 90-day warranty. I am still interested in a WinXP file backup
> (not a disk image), so I can reinstall it after I repartition with 'fat32' 
> for WinXP and 'ext3' for Linux. That's an easier proposition.

I don't know that XP will install on fat32, but I could be wrong.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey


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