Dual Booting with Windows XP

[Eric "Shubes"]

Victor Odhner wrote:
> I am trying to understand the fine points of installing Grub on a system 
> with XP.
> I did it successfully with lilo, but don't understand what I did.
> 
> I have gathered that XP has problems with a norml "Free" boot manager in 
> the
> boot sector.  I did my current install using instructions that came with
> SystemRescueCd, which uses Lilo.  The lilo.conf example is attached below.
> 
> So, the questions are:
> Q1:  Is there a kind of boot-manager setup that is right or wrong with XP?

I suppose, one that works and one that doesn't. ;) Seriously though, 
grub works with XP just fine. I've done it with several setups and 
various distros.

> Q1:  How is the one below different from an ordinary Lilo setup?

I'm not familiary enough with lilo to answer this question.

> Q2:  How can I do the equivalent using Grub?

Here's the substantial part of my grub /boot/menu.lst for XP:

title        Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
root        (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader    +1

Drive numbers for grub are relative to zero, which can be confusing. My 
XP partition is equivalent to /dev/hda1.

Generally speaking, if you install XP first and then Linux, you 
shouldn't have a problem as the Linux installer should set things up 
properly for you (I've tested Fedora, CentOS and Ubuntu, but other 
distros work too). If you install XP after Linux, you'll have to 
re-install grub (setup the MBR) and edit /boot/menu.lst accordingly.

Q: What/when have you done up to this point?
Q: What/where are your partitions/drive(s)?
Q: What is your grub /boot/menu.lst?

P.S. "The Linux Cookbook" (O'Reilly) has a good chapter on dual booting. 
It covers both lilo and grub.

> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Vic
> 
> Sample lilo config:
>  lba32
>  boot = /dev/hda
>  map = /boot/.map   <<==  140 kb, looks sort of like executable code
>  prompt
>  install = /boot/boot-menu.b     <<== This is an empty file
>  delay = 50
>  vga = normal
>  default=win
>  image = /boot/vmlinuz1
>        root = /dev/hda2
>        label = sysrcd
>        read-only
>  other = /dev/hda1
>        label = win
>        table = /dev/hda
> 
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-- 
-Eric 'shubes'
"There is no such thing as the People;
  it is a collectivist myth.
  There are only individual citizens
  with individual wills
  and individual purposes."
-William E. Simon (1927-2000),
     Secretary of the Treasury (1974-1977)
  "A Time For Truth" (1978), pg. 237

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