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Dual booting winXP and Linux using XP's boot loader?

S

SPB

Member
OK, using the instructions on this site on how to do this with 2000 and linux I have not been able to get this to work using XP and Linux. One difference from what I am doing and the examples in the instructions is that XP is on one drive and Linux on another. First thing that I noticed is that when "dumping" the Linux boot partition (/dev/hdb5) to a file wich the instructions said to name "bootsect.lnx", the resulting file has verry little info in it (like 2 verry small lines of code). Now when I went and opend the boot partition using "advanced edditor" there was god knows how much info in there (assumming it was the entire partition in some sort of programming language). So that is the first thing that struck me kinda funny. Second thing is that after taking that "bootsect.lnx" file and cping it to a flopy disk and then rebooting to Xp and cping it to the "c" drive and edditing the "boot.ini" file (added C:\BOOTSECT.LNX="Linux Mandrake 8.1") to the bottom of the rest of the text and then trying to reboot and choose the option to boot to linux I simply get a blinking curssor in the upper lefthand corner of the screen. Am I doing something wrong here? Keep in mind that I am a total Linux Newbie but that I can also fallow instructions with the best of them. The only thing that I can thik that may be causing the problem is the BOOTSECT.LNX file isn't what it is supposed to be, that and possibly the fact that Linux is on a seperate drive. So for now I am booting Mandrake using a boot disk (which SUCKS) and after several hours of trying to figure this out I'm now here asking you guys (the professionalls) how to accomplish what I am trying to do here. One other thing that I may need to mention is that I originally let Mandrake install LILO to the MBR of the XP partition which caused something verry wierd to happen. After rebooting out of the Mandrake install having installed LILO to the XP partition and expecting to get the LILO (graphicall) boot menu, I instead am greeted with zeros and ones repeating over and over on the screen. So I booted to a windows startup disk and fdisk'd the mbr and rebooted and reinstalled Mandrake (actually chose "upgrade existing install") installed LILO to the root partition of the linux install and rebooted to XP which was fine after "fdisk /mbr" was done. So there you have it. Anyone have any ideas?
 
This would be a bump. I'm pretty sure I fallowed the bumping "rules". Common guys, someone knows the answer to this or at least has some words of wisdome, maybe.
 
while i didnt read the entire post, why not use the lilo, instead of xp's boot manager .. its is much more simpler than this .. you add your boot image= , edit it correctly, and your done .. just my thoughts ..
-neural
 
DuDe just use a floopy boot disk instead. You and I know that XP's boot loader doesn't wanna play nice when near a Linux boot loader. So just use a floopy to boot into Linux.
 
your post is hard to read... break it up into paragraphs!

anyway, I used the XP boot loader for a while, but then I realized there were no benefits. whenever you recompile the linux kernel, not only do you have to run lilo, you have to copy the file back for the xp bootloader. I found it was much more convenient to use lilo for the boot loader. is there any particular reason you want to use XP's bootloader? is it that much more visually appealing? 😉
 
Sorry for the "run-on post" . Should have broke it up a bit 🙂 . Anyways, the reason that I NEED to use XP's boot loader is because if I install LILO to XP's mbr (which has to be done to dual but using LILO) some crazy sh*^ happens. Where I would have normally had the boot options in LILO I get 0's and 1's repeating down the screen forever (let it go 30minutes once just to see if it would and it did). So thats the delima. I am currently using the flopy method but it takes a long time to get booted up. I can handle the flopy methos of booting but as for using LILO there ain't no way I'm going to mess with it again 😉 . So back to the question at hand. Dual booting XP and Mandrake 8.1 using XP's boot loader. "CAN IT BE DONE" dumdumdumdum!?
 
I think you first need to make sure that LILO is properly working on the Linux partition (/dev/hdb5, from the first post). If LILO ain't working properly there, then it it won't work after you copy and andd the bootsector file to XP's loader menu.

By just seeing the blinking cursor, I doubt that LILO was even installed ... to /dev/hdb5.

But first things first, do you have a boot floppy for Linux *that works*.

Next, edit your /etc/lilo.conf file and make sure that /dev/hdb5 is listed as the boot partition (should be first line). Run 'lilo'.

Then you can grab the bootpart utility linked above to add Linux to XP's loader menu from DOS or Windows ... or you could do the dd method from within Linux.

-SUO
 
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