Hello. I have been running roughly the same Gentoo Linux system for over two years now, but since some software now requires me to use Windows XP right in time of the death of my second workstation, I would now like to dual boot Linux and Win XP on my workstation. The problem is, as most of you probably understand, that once one has one's system set up perfectly, you don't want to throw all of it away just to set up a dual boot system from scratch.

I have about seven partitions with my Linux system, and I would like to install Win XP on the eighth non-primary partition and boot it using grub. I seem to recall that Win XP requires a primary partition, but after some (very little) googling, I saw someone mentioning that they are infact running Windows XP on a logical partition.

How would I accomplish this? Getting grub back on the MBR won't be a problem since Gentoo provides such a great Live-CD, but I want to be 100% sure that my Linux system will stay intact. The important things I need to know is, first of all, if this is possible at all. Second, how do I get booted into Linux after the Windows installation is finished?

Hopefully someone else in this forum has tried this before and are willing to share their experiences with me. Thank you in advance.

My experience with windows and atypical installations is that the first problem is making the installation itself work. I have had good luck with these folks product, shareware and really well done. I'd suggest this rather than grub for boot loading and partition munging. They are VERY good.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/

respectfully
BJ

My Windows has always booted from a primary partition, even if it is actually in a logical partition. I have never installed Windows straight into a logical partition without another FAT/32/NTFS primary partition for it to install boot files in.

Something like this should work.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+Win9...OWTO/proc.html