dual booting XP and Linux

[Dan]

Stephen Esquibel wrote:
> I agree, and that is the method I took.  The only thing is that I 
> didn't overwrite the MBR on the Win drive, and I had my bios boot to 
> /hdb.  But I had an issue with Anaconda to where if the other drive 
> was connected it only allowed me to write Grub to the first sector of 
> /hdb1 (with partitions).  If the drive was disconnected, the MBR of 
> hdb was available.  So I installed FC5, booted to it made sure 
> everything was in order and configured the way I like it. Then I 
> edited grub.conf as stated with the chainloader statement and shut 
> down, connected the other drive back, and went on about my happy 
> dual-boot life.
>
> On 4/6/06, *Craig White * <craigwhite at azapple.com 
> <mailto:craigwhite at azapple.com>> wrote:
>
>     On Thu, 2006-04-06 at 20:54 -0400, Washington, CJ (OCTO) wrote:
>     >
>     >
>     > -----Original Message-----
>     > From: fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com
>     <mailto:fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com>
>     > [mailto: fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com
>     <mailto:fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com>] On Behalf Of Timothy Murphy
>     > Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 8:25 PM
>     > To: fedora-list at redhat.com <mailto:fedora-list at redhat.com>
>     > Subject: RE: dual booting XP and Linux
>     >
>     > Washington, CJ (OCTO) wrote:
>     >
>     > > I found it easier to let the WinXP boot manager chain load GRUB
>     > > than the other way 'round. MicroSoft products like to be in
>     > > charge. While GRUB+Linux is not a good match, it is a reasonable
>     > > match, and works pretty well, whereas GRUB+WinXP is a poor match,
>     > > and the WinXP boot manager is a pretty reasonable tool.
>     >
>     > That's nonsense.
>     > Millions of people are using to grub to boot Linux and/or Windows.
>     > It works perfectly well.
>     >
>     > It's easier to install Windows first,
>     > but if you install Linux (with grub) first
>     > it is a good idea to save the MBR with something like
>     >
>     >         dd if=/dev/hda of=mbr bs=512 count=1
>     >
>     > Then you can replace it afterwards (if you want) with
>     >
>     >         dd of=/dev/hda if=mbr bs=512 count=1
>     >
>     > --
>     > Timothy Murphy
>     > e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
>     <http://birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie>
>     > tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
>     > s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
>     >
>     > To who ever wants to be a smart ass,
>     >
>     > First of all, I was the one who posed the original question.  Look,
>     > I'm here because I assumed that there were actually people on this
>     > list that could help me because in no way am I remotely a Linux
>     guru
>     > or even novice.  I just got into this just like everyone else on
>     this
>     > list who once started out very novice with Linux and Unix.
>     >
>     > It's cool, I'll figure it out eventually.
>     >
>     > Thanks to everyone for all your help,
>     ----
>     I like the idea of removing the hard drives because it is safe. Your
>     Windows hard drive cannot be overwritten or damaged because it is not
>     there.
>
>     If you follow those instructions and put the Windows HD back in as a
>     slave drive...until you fix grub to allow you to boot Windows, you
>     won't
>     be able to boot into Windows.
>
>     My inclination would be to leave the Windows drive as primary master,
>     make the Linux drive primary slave. Take care to install Linux
>     only to
>     primary slave (/dev/hdb) but have grub do it's thing automatically,
>     which would over right the MBR on the primary master which would give
>     you a grub boot choice of Linux or Windows.
>
>     Craig
>
>     As for Timothy and Mike...they don't shy from their opinions but they
>     aren't dumb either. It's not about you.
>
>     Oh and by the way...your html mail is almost unreadable...could you
>     please post in plain text emails to the list?
>
>     --
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>
>
I had this problem; however in the advanced bootloader options (at least 
in a graphical install), there is an option to change which hard drive 
to install to. I don't remember the exact wording. Since I had to do a 
text install, though, I had to unplug the other two drives in my system. 
Such is life.
-Dan