Dual Boot Dilema Request for Ideas

[Tom Horsley]

On Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:55:59 -0400
Clyde E. Kunkel wrote:

> The key for me has always been to make sure windows is installed first 
> and then when installing linux (grub1 or 2) point the bootloader to the 
> linux /boot partition which is almost always some partition other than 
> the first on the first boot drive, i.e., /dev/sda[n] where n is greater 
> than 1.  You can then chainload to the windows partition from the grub 
> boot menu.

I did the opposite: on a Dell I got with windows 7 preinstalled. I
installed fedora 15 from the DVD and used the installer disk formatter
to shrink the NTFS partition and make room for fedora, then I told
fedora to install grub in the partition with fedora, not the MBR.
Then I fiddled the windows boot loader to be able to "chainload"
fedora (I found some little shareware program on the net to
simplify editing the windows boot info, I forget the name :-).

I figured with all the frighteningly undocumented Dell recovery
partition nonsense I didn't want to screw with the MBR or windows
loader any more than I had to.