dual boot linux?

[Victor Odhner]

mike enriquez wrote:

>I am a newbie on this subject. I am having problems setting up a dual
>boot with xp and linux. 
>I have done this before and no problems. But on 300 gig HD I am having
>problems with Red Hat & Suse. I installed xp first then I install Linux
>and my computer will not boot. I use the xp cd to repair the master boot
>record but this wipes out the linux set up. Both time Linux did not take
>me to the Grub setup as it generally does on good installs.
>I had my dual boot on an 80gig HD so I purchased a new 300 gig HD to set
>up the dual boot but I am stuck. 
>I installed RH by itself and the install works fine. 
>Does anyone out there have any ideas.
>  
>
Your Linux install normally will ask you into what partition it should 
install grub, whether to put it into the MBR or the root partition or 
whatever.  Maybe you missed it, or maybe the install wasn't working 
right.  If you didn't (get a chance to) tell it to put grub into the 
MBR, then it won't boot into grub.  But it sounds like the Linux setup 
broke your MBR.  Not good.

You probably have to do some grub hacking.  I've been forced into this a 
few times, and have temporarily become a grub wizard twice, though both 
times I forgot the details afterwards.  I've done well with resources 
like the ones listed below.  They discuss how grub works, and how to 
hack the pieces to get desired results.  One good intermediate stage is 
building a grub floppy (if you have a floppy drive!).

You could let the Windows boot loader start Windows, and adjust boot.ini 
to bounce you into grub if you want to run Linux.  I have not done that 
myself -- I use grub to bring up XP or one of several Linux 
installations.  The benefit would be that you have not rocked the 
Windows boat, since it's so leaky . . .   That approach is addressed in 
these articles too.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4622 -- good nuts-and-bolts exercise 
in setting up grub, to start with.  The reader comments include some 
other angles.

Hack the Windows NT/2000/XP Boot Loader
   http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/2337
This explains how to boot grub from Boot.ini.

http://enterprise.linux.com/article.pl?sid=05/02/16/1919205&tid=129
More of the same.

Good luck,

Vic