Grub for XP

BMB · 02-20-2007, 01:41 AM

I have two WinXP installations (sda1, sda2). The one on sda2 was originally installed on sda1, and moved. I tried booting it with boot.ini, but it can't find a lot of files becuase it is looking for them on c:. I want to install grub and use it's hide option to boot it. Can I install it from windows, or if I install it from a liveCD, can I configure it from windows?

pixellany · 02-20-2007, 09:25 AM

I have never heard of putting grub on a PC without Linux, but it may be possible.

However, if you cannot find certain files, grub is not going to solve that for you.

I won't even ask why TWO installs of XP

BMB · 02-25-2007, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pixellany

I have never heard of putting grub on a PC without Linux, but it may be possible.

However, if you cannot find certain files, grub is not going to solve that for you.

I won't even ask why TWO installs of XP

I can find the files. They are on D:, but windows is searching on C:.
(I have an English and a Hebrew installation of XP

)

Lordandmaker · 02-25-2007, 03:57 AM

You'd want to use the WinXP install to fix the Windows boot loader.

Al Grub will do is point you at where it thinks there's a windows boot loader, and tell that to boot. Which it wont because it'll be on the wrong drive.

BMB · 02-26-2007, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lordandmaker

You'd want to use the WinXP install to fix the Windows boot loader.

Al Grub will do is point you at where it thinks there's a windows boot loader, and tell that to boot. Which it wont because it'll be on the wrong drive.

I need GRUB to hide C:, since the XP installation on D: was originally installed on C: and then moved with QTParted.

Dragineez · 02-26-2007, 11:33 AM

This may sound silly, but have you considered making the secondary drive the primary? Thus becoming "C:", thus now looking for the files in the correct place?

BMB · 02-28-2007, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dragineez

This may sound silly, but have you considered making the secondary drive the primary? Thus becoming "C:", thus now looking for the files in the correct place?

Can't do that because the second XP installation was also done on C:, after moving the first one over with QTParted.

syg00 · 02-28-2007, 03:41 AM

XP will only have one system partition - that's where all the boot files are.
No, I'm not kidding - stay with me here. The partition where all the system files (especially for the second and later installs) is called the boot partition.
True.

That's the explanation. As for your query, you need grub4dos - tinybit will welcome you warmly.

alred · 03-01-2007, 01:15 PM

i think if there are enough pestering for grub4dos , it can do wonders ... i never try it but i had surf to some sites about cdroms and hardwares that i came across this grub ...

try it if you can ...

.

dragon_788 · 04-21-2007, 04:05 PM

I believe in order to get grub on a machine that's running XP you would need a 30-50Mb /boot partition even though you are running Windows, as grub needs a place to store its configuration and the system map. If you can resize your partitions a bit using Gparted (which also allows you to hide partitions) then you can create this partition and install and use Grub to boot Windows.