Dual-booting - Department of Computer Science | Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Dual-booting Computers and Sharing Files between Operating Systems on the Same Computer

1. Dual-Booting

Eighteen of the twenty computers in the Computer Lab (Faner 2102) and all the computers in Lindegre 18 lab are Windows-and-Linux dual-bootable. pc00 and pc01 are kept as Linux-only to allow 24/7 remote access.

Here are the dual-booting instructions:

To reboot the PC from Windows:

Log off from Windows
Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete Keys
Click on the Shutdown... button
Choose Restart from the drop-down menu and Click OK.

To reboot the PC from Linux:

Log off from Linux
Click Reboot on the menu bar at the bottom of the screen
Click on Yes

2. Sharing Files Between Windows and Linux on the Same Computer

1) The drive E: under Windows is also mounted as /mnt/WinLinux under Linux on the same computer. So files stored on drive E: can be accessed from both Windows and Linux on the same computer. This provides a means to transfer files between these two operating systems on the same computer.

2) The Drive E or /mnt/WinLinux can also be used for temporary storage, such as downloading files or iso images to burn CDs.

3) However, files stored on E: or /mnt/WinLinux is NOT privilege-protected, they can be accessed by anyone who logs on this computer, so please delete them before you log off if you don't want other people to see your files. Drive E: is set to be cleaned every night.

3. Maintenance

A dual-bootable computer, if staying in Linux status, will automatically reboot into Windows at 2:45am every night to clean disk space and get the latest security patches and virus database. Some of the patch installations might reboot the computer again after the installation is finished.

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