Install Linux Over One Of Two Partitions

[NNNOOOOOO 0]

My laptop has a 40GB HDD. It is partitioned into ~half. The biggest partition containes Windows XP w/SP3. The smaller partition containes Linux Xubuntu. Today, I desided to try Fedora-14-32 bit. So far, exluding lack of certain features, I like Fedora better than Xubuntu. The question I've googled a lot so far returns no results I'm looking for. What I want to know is: If I chose to install Fedora, will it give me the option the format one of the two existing partitions and install to it? If so, will it tell me what's on the two partitions so I choose the correct partition? Or, are my only options: Format the entire HDD and use only linux, or create a 3^rd partition for Fedora?

 

As a side question, how do I mount the Windows partition as "read only"? You know, if Windows is hibernating and I want to listen to music/watch videos.

[NNNOOOOOO 0]

For my first set of querries, I decided to see what options I would be given. Installing over my current Linux partition was the default option. I chose it, like I wanted, and went through the install, also, like I wanted. Now I'm using Fedora. :)But I still need an answer to the last question.

Edited February 12, 2011 by NNNOOOOOO (see edit history)

[Baniboy 3]

You can do that by installing MountManager. In MountManager, search the windows partition on the list (on the left left) and click it. A set of options should come up. Go to where it says "What users can do at this partition" and select "only read".

You know, if Windows is hibernating and I want to listen to music/watch videos.

Now that doesn't even make sense. Windows is hibernating? If you've booted to Fedora, Windows is off, not hibernating. You don't need read-only to access files. You can both write and read on a windows partition. BUT I'm not familiar with Fedora so I could be wrong. At least I can do it on Ubuntu...

[NNNOOOOOO 0]

Now that doesn't even make sense. Windows is hibernating? If you've booted to Fedora, Windows is off, not hibernating.

If Windows is hibernating, it is off. Windows saves what's in the RAM to the hard drive, then shuts down. When you boot back into Windows, it'll reload the files on the HDD to the RAM.If Windows is hibernating, Linux refuses to mount the Windows partition (unless you tell it to mount as Read Only) so you don't change system files and f*** something up. The reason I make Windows hibernate is so it'll boot faster, or I'm actually doing something that a "shut down" will force me to redo/restart.

[Baniboy 3]

Then all you have to do is use "-r". "-w" (read-write) is the default when using the mount command. When you want to mount a partition read-only, mount it in the terminal and use -r to mount as read-only.Hope you found this helpful.