Installing Linux on Windows XP Machine

[rclendenon]

The other day I installed Suse 9.1 on a machine that also has Windows XP installed. My hope was that I could boot to either OS (default to Windows XP). However, after the install I was only able to boot to the Suse 9.1 system. When I tried to boot to the Windows XP system it would list the info that shows up in the grub boot file (I lost my paper that had the exact wording) and then would just hang. I have sense reformatted my harddrive and reinstalled Windows XP. How do I install Suse without screwing up my XP installation.

Thanks in advance!

[saikee]

Just keep your eyes open during the installation.

No need to reformat the hard disk, people here can tell you how to get both systems back. Since Linux and Windows are always installed at partitions exclusively of each other no physical damage can be done. The booting issue is just the way you specify during the installation.

There are many ways to secure a dual boot. The easiest is to let Suse install the bootloader (Grub used as the standard in mine) into the MBR.

[rclendenon]

Saikee,

Thanks for the response. I've printed out your "Laziest way to make several Linux bootable with Windows" thread and will see if I have any success. If I run into any problems I will post a reply. Thanks again for the help.

[rclendenon]

I have installed Suse 9.1 and now when I select 'Windows' at the boot up screen I receive the following and then it stops:

root(hd0,0)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
chainloader +1

I am using 'Grub'. I don't know what additional info you might need but I will be glad to provide anything at this point. If anyone can help me get Windows to boot it would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks

[^DoCtOr^]

Try changing to rootnoverify option.

For example:


title=Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0) #Depends on where your Windows partition is.
chainloader +1

[rclendenon]

^DoCtOr^,

Thanks for the reply. I have tried this and I still have the same problem. Windows is installed on /hdc1.

Thanks again,

[gehidore]

Originally posted by rclendenon
Thanks for the reply. I have tried this and I still have the same problem. Windows is installed on /hdc1.

Thanks again,

that would be /dev/hdc1

and grub would see that as (hd2,0)


so

title=Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd2,0) #Depends on where your Windows partition is.
chainloader +1

[saikee]

We need a bit more information on where are the systems you have installed.

hdc means there could be hda and hdb in front of the queue according to the BIOS record. XP would normally grab the hda for installation. If this is denied it would still write its boot code on the the MBR of hda.

I got the feeling that you may not have other hard drives full time in the system too.

To me your error message suggests your Windows cannot be chainloaded successfully at the (hd0,0) location. This is more to do with Windows rather than Linux if Suse is working normally.

There is of course a confusion possibly introduced by Suse because it calls my hard drive as "hde" while other distros call it hda when I have only one drive in the system. Thus we can't rule out the possibility that you have only one drive in the system.

While you still have Suse bootable can I ask you to make a Grub boot disk for the rainny day. Put a floppy in the drive and type

dd if=/usr/lib/grub/i386-suse/stage1 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1
dd if=/usr/lib/grub/i386-suse/stage2 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 seek=1

Other Linux systems could have the stage1 & stage2 files stored in /usr/share/i386-pc as documented by "Linux in a nutshell" but I found Suse 9.1 put them in the above location. That disk can get you back Suse if you lose it again. If you boot the grub boot floppy at command prompt, the line

configfile (hd0,x)/boot/grub/menu.lst

will boot Suse up for you, where x=partition number -1. Grub differs from Linux by counting from zero.

If you want Windows alone bootable use the installation CD recovery Console and type "fixmbr". That will restore the Windows boot code in MBR for you. No need to do any re-format again.