The following tutorial is a step-by-step guide to managing a Win-Linux dualboot with the XP boot loader. (boot.ini)
The advantage of doing this is that your XP partition remains usable all the while during Linux installation - there's hardly any chance of a MBR corruption.
You can always boot into XP if something goes wrong with Lilo/Grub installation.
(Or maybe some people just like the xp bootloader better)
For the purpose of the following, I'll assume that you have XP installed on the first partition (/dev/hda1) and you're installing Linux on /dev/hda3.
Change the values as they appear, as per your case.
While installing linux, make sure you install the bootloader (Lilo/Grub) to the bootsector of the partition that you install it on ... NOT on the MBR.
ie., for our example, you'd install Lilo/Grub on /dev/hda3, NOT on /dev/hda
Next you need to get to a Linux command-prompt.
You can either :
- get the command line at the end of the Linux installation (run the following command before you restart your system)
- or you can boot with the Linux CD-ROM again after the installation is finished, and run the following command instead of running setup.
Run the following command :
This will copy the first 512 bytes of the Linux bootsector (located at /dev/hda3) into the root of your XP system partition (hda1) as a file named "linux.bin".
Change /dev/hda3 and /mnt/hda1/linux.bin as per your case.
(you can do this step with a disk-editor as well, but that's not recommended for inexperienced users)
Now you have to add Linux entry to boot.ini,
Boot into XP (Linux is not yet bootable anyway), and open your boot.ini file in a text editor.
Add the following entry at the end :
This is what my final boot.ini looks like :
The next time you boot, you should see an option to boot Linux in your XP bootloader.
The advantage of doing this is that your XP partition remains usable all the while during Linux installation - there's hardly any chance of a MBR corruption.
You can always boot into XP if something goes wrong with Lilo/Grub installation.
(Or maybe some people just like the xp bootloader better)
For the purpose of the following, I'll assume that you have XP installed on the first partition (/dev/hda1) and you're installing Linux on /dev/hda3.
Change the values as they appear, as per your case.
While installing linux, make sure you install the bootloader (Lilo/Grub) to the bootsector of the partition that you install it on ... NOT on the MBR.
ie., for our example, you'd install Lilo/Grub on /dev/hda3, NOT on /dev/hda
Next you need to get to a Linux command-prompt.
You can either :
- get the command line at the end of the Linux installation (run the following command before you restart your system)
- or you can boot with the Linux CD-ROM again after the installation is finished, and run the following command instead of running setup.
Run the following command :
| Code: |
| dd if=/dev/hda3 of=/mnt/hda1/linux.bin bs=512 count=1 |
This will copy the first 512 bytes of the Linux bootsector (located at /dev/hda3) into the root of your XP system partition (hda1) as a file named "linux.bin".
Change /dev/hda3 and /mnt/hda1/linux.bin as per your case.
(you can do this step with a disk-editor as well, but that's not recommended for inexperienced users)
Now you have to add Linux entry to boot.ini,
Boot into XP (Linux is not yet bootable anyway), and open your boot.ini file in a text editor.
Add the following entry at the end :
| Code: |
| C:\linux.bin="Linux" |
This is what my final boot.ini looks like :
| Code: |
| [boot loader]
timeout=10 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows="Windows XP" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect C:\linux.bin="Slackware Linux" |
The next time you boot, you should see an option to boot Linux in your XP bootloader.
