dual boot - XP and Linux - Need to reinstall XP without effecting linux -LILO boot
 

Hi All,

I am having a dual boot configuration with XP on main partition and linux(RH9)
on secondary partiton.

Due to some reason after about 3 months XP crashed.

I would like to reinstall XP alone without effecting linux partiton.

The problem I expect is with LILO. Will an XP reinstallation
in C drive overwrite LILO, thereby making linux OS
unavailable...???

If yes, is there any way to reinstall LILO, so as to bring
back the old dual boot configuration with new XP and
old linux up!!!!!????

Or is it that once I reinstall XP, my linux is lost foroever
and hence i need to resintall linux too?????

I am not much experienced with installtion issues..

Please help.

-thanks
godofmind

Reinstalling XP will probably blow away the MBR, but it's not a big problem.

One way round is to use the CD as a boot device and boot Red Hat from there; then run "lilo" to recreate the MBR. Another is to backup the MBR using dd (I don't have the command to hand). Yet another is to create a floppy boot device before the XP install.

All of these can be tested before you install XP, to give you confidence that you can still boot up Linux even without the MBR and lilo.