Slowdowns on a dual-boot system?

[mina.magpie]

Hihi

So I've been trying to get Linux and WinXP to play nice, but I keep finding that HDD access under WinXP is HORRIBLE for some reason. Access time under Linux is okay.

Details: Tried Ubuntu, but went back to SuSE hoping I'd have better luck. No dice.
Hardware: ASUS L4R 1.5 GHz.

I'm not too knowledgeable on Linux yet, having only recently started tinkering with bootables like Knoppix and the various Live CD distros out there. This is my first real attempt at a dual boot system. Installed Linux as instructed by the HOWTO's, stuffed WinXP in its own partition, and got them coexisting in the bootloader ... only yeah, HDD access in particular and hardware performance in general under windows is practically useless.

Anybody have some ideas or advice on this?

Mina.

[rustypup]

did you install windows first, or *nix?

[mina.magpie]

*nix first into the main partition, then WinXP into a secondary, with the bootloader letting me choose which to run.

It hit just me, I used to have a somewhat similar problem on a pure XP system with a partitioned HDD - accessing the secondary was always MUCH slower, and I just attributed it to having to access the HDD via a logical partition table rather than directly - that and WinXP's general ... microsoftness.

I eventually gave up and went back to a single partition, but I'm just wondering if it might not have had something to do with the hardware instead ... something of which I know nada.

Mina.

[rustypup]

yup... windows hates that, especially given that it prefers to use the master drive for cache ops...

install windows first, with *nix on a secondary partition - unlike windows, *nix could care less about where it's installed...

[mina.magpie]

Didn't know that - I thought the only way you could have a dual boot with Windows was to have the other OS take up boot loading.

Thanks for enlightening me!

Mina.