Hello,

I've got questions about multi boot.
I'm working on a laptop (buy in august) with 5 partitions, sda1 is a Windows Xp OS and sda5 is an ext3 partition (with mandriva). I just format the sda5 and now grub can't show me the multiboot menu because he has been formated. I'm actually downloading freespire with an other computer.

I just want to know if installing freespire and configuring a multiboot (with grub or lilo) will fix this problem ... Will it detect my Xp2 OS ? have problems with boot sector ?

If i have to enter the winXP partition (sda1) manually what should i write in lilo/grub ?

Monday i won't be connected to the internet before a week so i 'd like to fix my problem today or tomorow

nb : I'm not english, sorry if you can't understand me perfectly.

When you install freespire I'd be surprised if it didn't install the boot loader. As long as it gets installed to the master boot record you should be able to boot into windows. I haven't used freespire, but a lot of distros I've tried out have been pretty good at guessing what it needs in order to have the dual boot working.

If for some reason you need to do the configuring yourself the exact process will depend on if you're using lilo or grub. For grub you want a set of lines like this:

title Windows
root (hd0,0)
rootnoverify
chainloader +1

Ok thanks a lot, i think freespire uses grub

Yes, formatting the Linux partition destroyed GRUB's menu.
Install any bootloader should give you the option to boot Windows again.
You can run fixmbr from a Windows recovery console to restore the Windows boot.
If you are getting a GRUB prompt at boot up you should be able to enter the last three commands listed by mcmillan to boot XP.
root (hd0,0)
rootnoverify
chainloader +1
EDIT: then enter "boot" last