Windows XP has its own bootloader, which detects other copies of windows installed (I dont know if it detects Linux). I am currently running Ubuntu with Grub and a really screwed up copy of XP from a while ago that won't even boot up correctly anymore. I didn't really care about it before, but now I'm thinking of reinstalling Windows for a lanparty tomorrow (since I don't have Cedega or Winex, and don't want to start tinkering with it during the lan party, plus I heard it's not free anymore).

The problem is that I don't want Windows's bootloader to screw up my grub or set itself as primary. So my question is, if I install Windows after installing Linux instead of before, will I see Windows's bootloader appear first (before grub) or will grub still overwrite it?

Pretty sure the windows bootloader will overwrite grub without asking.

There are a couple courses of action that you could take.
A) Install XP, and later boot with a rescue disk or live distro and reinstall the grub loader, and add entries to /boot/grub/menu.lst to chainload Windows XP. Perhaps printing out the Grub manual or manpage will make the job easier. For example, in writing the Windows section of menu.lst.
B) Install the grub boot loader to the Linux root device; make an image file of the first 244 bytes ( saved on a floppy or usb key drive ); add a Linux entry to the Window's C:\BOOT.INI file and save the grub boot image on the C:\ driver.
C) Some distro's have a repair function as a part of their installation program.
I don't know about Slackware however. On such a distro, you would be able to install XP, and then run the repair to detect your linux partitions and install Grub such that both OSes are on the boot menu. This is like A) but automatic.

Both of these have been mentioned frequently, so a search on this site will reveal detailed instructions. There is also a Howto on the www.tldp.org website.

The fastest and easiest way to Install Windows on an existing Linux system is to install another hard drive.
Set bios to make the new drive "number one"
Install Windows
Set the bios back to the Linux drive
add the Windows entry to the grub config file

Basically, you'll just need a primary Fat32 partition, installed somewhere on HDD. Nothing else. After that you can boot using DOS mode, and install windows. It SHOULD detect empty partition, and use it for an installation.
WARNING! If you have linux loader installed into MBR there can be serious problems. (Someone in paralel thread claims that he managed to destroy HDD data this way)

All that happens is that the Windows bootloader gets installed in the mbr---easy to fix: boot from any live CD and reinstall the Linux bootloader.

Think you mean that someone **thought** he destroyed data--more likely, he just couldn't boot---or he simply might have not been paying attention and let Windows take the whole disk.

Well, you might be surprised how many time it does corrupt your data. This is mostly caused by shrinking a corrupted NTFS filesytem though (always defrag before shrinking).

I really like vmware server for this.
Not the best solution for a lan party though (unless your system is powerfull enough).

I really don't see a reason to install loader in MBR. It works fine at the start of Linux partition. And if one OS crashes you'll be able to boot another easily - you'll just have to change active partition. This scheme worked nicely on my PC. (With loader in MBR (another scheme) I couldn't get some disk utilities to work.)

Here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=545910

With 80 GB hard disk i have installed fedora 6 first (40GB) and after that i tried to install windows XP in remaining free 40 GB space, but not able to install.

I can get message "Boot from CD" when i enter it give message " XP is inspection files....." (something like that), after that i can see only blank dark screen monitor. I noticed that hard disk red light is flashing continuously. I wait for more than 2 hours then also i can see only dark screen.


Please help!

I thought there is a limit of space before a first partition sector after which partition won't boot. I'm not sure (correct me if I'm wrong) if this information isn't out of date, but I thought that only Linux will boot from anywhere (however loader must be installed within 8gb from start), while windows and other systems must be within certain range from first sector to be bootable. I suppose that Fedora partition is first and WinXP partition is second. The boot limit for winXp (according to a PowerQuest Partition Magic 8.0 Documentation) is 8Gb. So this partition won't boot, and You won't be able to install WinXP on it.
(You probably will be able to install it, but you won't be able to continue installtion after reboot).
Maybe there is a workaroung about this limit (using GRUB or something else), but I don't know about it. By the way, in which format is remaining space on drive? Is it unformatted? I remember that WinXP installer always tried to store it's data somewhere, so it'll probably need a readable Fat32/Fat partition.

If I were you I would have made a small Windows partition (system) inside the "bootable" limit, and made a separate logical partition with system data which would be located after Fedora partition.

I think this thread definitely confirms its much easier to linux on top of XP. NTFS 3G looks promising. Eventually, I'm predicting installers will not only auto-detect an NTFS partition, but offer an option to install directly on NTFS partitions with the linux file-system accessed as a loopback option.

As ErV mentioned, having a Fat32 file-system would solve your problems without worrying about partitioning. Sadly, I don't think Fat32 is a particularly desirable file-system. Linux has loopback options for the determined and system stablility, XP on the other hand you would be running off of Fat32 and thats not going to very fun at all.

I thought It's already possible to boot linux from NTFS partiton (at least ntfs-3g's documentation says so). Unfortunately, Ntfs on WinXP offers a better performance (it can be noticed only when a lot of disk operations occur at same time on NTFS partition), it doesn't yet support linux security model and flags (although I'm happily using ntfs-3g with ntfs partitions without much problems).

It could solve some problems, but Partition Boundaries cross boot-limit. (It would be good if someon confirmed if this limit still exists or not).

Fat32 can be converted to NTFS after successful system install. Unfortunately in case of violen system crash (if system became unbootable) it will be difficult to install system again wihtou losing data (although having working linux partition will help a lot )

Dear ErV,

Thanks for your reply. Yes the free space is unformatted. I will try to converted it into NTFS or FAT32 try it and tell you.



Thank you once again.

Just a warning:
YOu most likely won't be able to install WinXP from bootable CDrom to NTFS partition. I recommend making FAT32 partition, and instaliing WinXP on it. If installation will be successful, you'll be able to convert partition to ntfs using "convert C: /FS:NTFS" command (on WinXP). Bootable CD (with WinXP installer) won't see NTFS partition (at least no WinXP distribution i've seen so far could install to NTFS drive from dos mode/bootable cdrom), so if you'll chose to convert drive to NTFS (during installation) and installation will fail for some reason, then you'll have to start over and create Fat32 partition again. That'll be a waste of time.

After installing XP over Linux, XP will overwrite the mbr and only XP will be booted.
To remedy, a better and easiest option for anyone including a Linux Administrator will be to use a dos bootable and boot the hard disk. Then install XOSL bootloader which is freely available on internet or with computer magazines (XOSL can only be installed on a fat/fat32 partition). Any new operating system can be configured for booting with XOSL. (You can use any other similar bootloader I choose XOSL for its simplicity)
Later if you prefer grub or any other bootloader, it can be restored when you are logged into the preferred Operating System.