Dual booting Linux and Win XP

[JTH]

Hi all, I've got a sudden urge to give Linux another try as a dual boot on my hard drive!

I am a bit hesitant, however, as last time I tried it it ended up ruining my XP installation and I really can't afford for that to happen again (it would be a LOT of work to re-install all my apps etc.) That was with Fedora Core 1, so I think if I am to try Linux again it will be with a Linuz distro. First and foremost, can I have safely have a dual-boot system on one HDD (see system specs below)? What is the best way to go about this? And finally, what is the best distro for me to try - I see Slackware 10 is out but I'm not sure this would be too good for a fairly novice user.

Thanks in advance!

[JTH]

Oh by the way, I have the Live CD version of Slax (no need to install it on your HDD) and I really like it. I understand it's based on Slackware so that's another reason why I'm leaning towards it somewhat.

[ShadowSorcerer]

I have RedHat 9 installed on my comp and an 80GB HDD myself. Just as long as your Windows Partition doesn't take up the entire HD and you left enough space for another OS then you should be good.

[JTH]

I would say that my Windows partition probably by default takes up the whole drive. I know I could resize with Partition Magic but I think some of my bad experiances from last time were caused by that program. Is there any other free partition program that would do the job?

[Rugpriest]

Give linux a try, it can only be good .

Ive dual booted windows XP 64 bit edition which Microsoft are kindly giving away for FREE!! (OEM only tho and minimal support). Im also using SUSE Linux 9.1 Professional which I paid for. - hummm got that the wrong way round but I think SUSE are more deserving of my money than microsoft.

[antgross@pacbell.net]

If you use partition magic you can get rid of any LInux installation by simply deleting the partition. Then, if you were using some LInux boot manager, you can simply run the windows console from the CD and repair your windows boot up. The utilities fixmbr and fixboot enable you do this fairly easily.

[LocoCoyote]

I have had only good things happen when I used Partition Magic to partion my drives. FIPS is good and is a free alternative packaged on many distro CDs.
I have been runnig a dual-triple boot for years now with minimal problems (and most of those were because I can't just leave off tweaking and tweaking and tweaking unitl I break it........as my sig says! )

[JTH]

Yes but I'm sure you have at least two hard drives. My only option now is to resize an XP partition, which messed up XP last time I tried it. I want to give Linux a go but I've had two failed attempts already.

[mikeL]

I would use a bootable CD for now (Knoppix, or the like) just to get my feet wet, and save up for another hard drive just for linux.

I would stay away from fedora's latest release, I've read alot of posts about XP and fedora not playing well together,

Mike

[JTH]

I have the live version of Slax so I have a fair idea of Linux. Take a look at the opening post ^^ The original problem was that I had Mandrake on a second HDD and still couldn't dual boot it with XP as master.

[LocoCoyote]

I have a single hard drive and the computer I am dual/triple booting on is a notebook

[mikeL]

Take a look at the opening post ^^ The original problem was that I had Mandrake on a second HDD and still couldn't dual boot it with XP as master.

Sorry but there is no mention of Mandrake, or a second hard drive.

Your original post asked if you could dual boot on one hard drive, and you asked if Slackware is good for a novice user, I would say no, try a more user friendly distro like SuSE, or Madrake.

Mike

[Marke522]

Why not set it to boot with Linux as the master and run XP inside of Linux ?

[JTH]

I tried that as well but it didn't work either. I can only use 1 HD now anyway because I've gone and sold off the other one.

MikeL; sorry, I was getting mixed up with this thread which I posted a while back and no one replied to:

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=108499

I may use PM to resize my XP partition and try Mandrake and XP on one HDD but I'm worried it will mess up my important XP install. And seeing as I couldn't get it booting with two hard drives (tried mastering XP with OSL2000 boot manager and tried mastering Mandrake with its boot manager), I'm worried that I won't be able to get it with one either.

TIA for any replies!

[mikeL]

JTH, IF you get PM to successfully resize your drive, just remember that the bootloader goes to "hda" mbr, your "c" drive will be "hda1", and your new partiton "d" should be "hda5" I believe.

If your install dosen't work just toss in a windows boot disk, or XP disk and fdisk /mbr it will remove the linux bootloader, and you can restart in XP.

Mike

[JTH]

Okay I will probably give that a try. Third time lucky with Linux!

By the way, I was just taking a look at your signature. Where do you register as an official Linux user?

Thanks, JTH

[none]

This looks like a good thread to ask this question. I'm new to dual OS so I used partition magic to resize the partition for the new install but i didn't let windows load back up after making the changes before i installed linux (suse 9.1 pro) now windows won't boot at all. linux is booting up fine. what's my best course of action? would the forementioned "fixmbr" work for me? TIA.

[mikeL]

none, first off Welcome to PC Mechanic, I don't quite understand your problem.

I'm new to dual OS so I used partition magic to resize the partition for the new install but i didn't let windows load back up after making the changes before i installed linux (suse 9.1 pro) now windows won't boot at all.

What you are saying is that you don't have a choice in the bootloader (lilo or grub) to select windows.

Or do you have the choice, and windows just won't boot. fdisk /mbr will fix the problem but then SuSE won't boot, because fdisk will over rewrite the the boot record

How ever if the problem is with lilo or grub, then you just have to edit one of the config files, which can be done either through the GUI or command line.

JTH you can be counted here - http://www.counter.li.org

[none]

Originally Posted by mikeL none, first off Welcome to PC Mechanic, I don't quite understand your problem. What you are saying is that you don't have a choice in the bootloader (lilo or grub) to select windows. Or do you have the choice, and windows just won't boot. fdisk /mbr will fix the problem but then SuSE won't boot, because fdisk will over rewrite the the boot record How ever if the problem is with lilo or grub, then you just have to edit one of the config files, which can be done either through the GUI or command line. JTH you can be counted here - http://www.counter.li.org

Thanks for your reply, sorry for lack of clarity it was pretty late. I do have the option to load windows in grub, when selected windows begins to boot but before it can i get an error message saying that a certain file can't be found and 'autocheck' will not proceed. then the computer automatically restarts. If using fdisk/mbr to repair the bootrecord would no longer let me boot linux, I could just do with it what I didn't want to do with windows and delete the linux partition and start all over. is that what i should try? thanks again.

[mikeL]

What does your /etc/grub.conf file look like? can you cut and paste it here? If I remember right dosen't YaST have a repair option for the bootloader. I would check that

If you use a XP disk, you'll boot from the CD and choose recover then use the 'fixmbr' command or the 'fixboot'

If using a Win 9x boot disk then fdisk /mbr will also fix the boot record.

Mike

[none]

Originally Posted by mikeL What does your /etc/grub.conf file look like? can you cut and paste it here? If I remember right dosen't YaST have a repair option for the bootloader. I would check that If you use a XP disk, you'll boot from the CD and choose recover then use the 'fixmbr' command or the 'fixboot' If using a Win 9x boot disk then fdisk /mbr will also fix the boot record. Mike

here is grub.conf:

root (hd0,1)
install --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0) /boot/grub/stage2 0x8000 (hd0,1)/boot/grub/menu.lst
quit

I tried booting from my xp disk and tried recovering using "fixmbr" unfortunately it seemed to make things worse as after the fix i could not boot either operating system. I even tried starting a new xp install, just to check some things and it said the partition i told it to install to (that partition being the resized windows partition partition magic made for me) was not valid. I'll check on repairing the bootloader through YaST. Thanks again.

[none]

I'm starting to think the bootloader isn't the problem, windows begins to startup. I get the XP boot screen and it appears to be loading as normal. until it opens a screen that looks like the one that's loaded when windows scans your harddrive after an improper restart or shut down. however, when that screen loads instead of a HD scan i get this message: "xmnt2002" program not found autocheck will not continue
and the next line: "autocheck" program not found autocheck will not continue. then the computer suddenly restarts.
I'm starting to think that some windows files were corrupted or deleting at some point during the resizing of the partition or linux installation.
i'll keep researching, thank you.

[JTH]

None, this is the exact same thing that happened me when I installed Fedora Core 1 Linux on a machine that I first resized my XP drive on with Partition Magic. The results were exactly the same for me and I ended up having to do a clean install of Windows XP (major inconveniance at the time). That's what's put me off Linux and PM in general and reading stories like yours make me more wary of trying again (for a third time - I've tried with two HDD and Mandrake Linux as well).

JTH

[none]

Originally Posted by JTH None, this is the exact same thing that happened me when I installed Fedora Core 1 Linux on a machine that I first resized my XP drive on with Partition Magic. The results were exactly the same for me and I ended up having to do a clean install of Windows XP (major inconveniance at the time). That's what's put me off Linux and PM in general and reading stories like yours make me more wary of trying again (for a third time - I've tried with two HDD and Mandrake Linux as well). JTH

At this point i'm just trying to find a way to save all the files and information trapped on my computer. i don't know maybe there's no way around it, i'm just going to have to loose all of it and do a fresh install of xp.

[JTH]

None, this won't help you dual-boot Suse and XP, but you should be able to save your files by the following method:

1) Download the LIVE version of Slax Linux (a.k.a. the one that runs from the CD) from www.linuxiso.org

2) Boot from Slax, run the CD burning program and choose to open files by partition

3) Navigate to your Windows partition and you should see all your files intact, still in their proper folders

4) Select which ones you want and then burn them onto a disc

5) Re-install Windows XP on a partition that takes up your full hard drive and copy back on the files you've saved when that's done.

[mikeL]

Hey I found this article, for some reason Partition Magic makes NTFS partitions hidden, and when you boot from grub it can find the NTFS giving you the xmnt2002 error.

Edit the Windows XP menu item in GRUB. This will unhide your NTFS partition, and is simply done by adding the following lines to /boot/grub/menu.1st...

title Windows XP Professional
unhide (hd0,0)
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

The full post can be read here
http://supportforum.sun.com/sjds/ind...rid=0#msg_2762

Hope this helps
Mike

[JTH]

Thanks Mike, sounds like a remedy for the problem I'm having - I'll give it a go!