dual booting XP and Linux

[Les Mikesell]

On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 15:42, Mike McCarty wrote:

> If I install GRUB as the boot manager in the MBR, then my
> machine complains that it has been clobbered, and asks
> me whether I'd like to recover. If I tell it "no",
> then it shuts up, and I can load GRUB. No problem. But
> GRUB cannot properly chain load WinXP. And that's a fact.
> 
> I put the chain load stuff in for GRUB, and it didn't work.
> No way, no how. After I selected WinXP, I saw it go through a
> somewhat prolonged load (several  seconds) with a little sort
> of thermometer on the bottom of the screen (like during the
> initial first boot) and then it told me that the system looked
> corrupt, and did I want to do recovery. When I told it "no", it
> rebooted, and up came GRUB.

This sounds to me like grub did in fact load winxp - otherwise
it wouldn't have done anything at all. Then either your partitions
were mangled (did you resize or anything?) or something like
a virus checker detected the change from within XP. Is that
a standard version or an OEM version with who-knows-what added
in?

> I've been told that it is "imagination", I've been told
> that the installer "just works", I've been told that
> it's a result of a clobbered PT (which it isn't), I've
> been told that I was "inventing" it, and I've been told that
> I didn't run the installer correctly. I've been told
> other things.

It sounds like something certain OEMs might consider a
'feature'.  But they should be able to tell you how to
turn it off.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
  lesmikesell at gmail.com