installation fedora windows xp
 

Hello frenz

I had got two windows xp installation one on my primary partion and other on one of the logical drives. When I installed Fedora in another primary partition of the same hard disk, there was a problem. The linux and 'windows xp installation on the primary partion' booted as before while the other windows xp which was on the logical drive displayed an error message when opted for booting which read

missing or corrupt file: hal.dll

I tried 2 to 3 times, without any success.When again I repaired the failed xp, the linux grub loader didnot show up.
Is it possible to have two windows xp and one linux installation(fedora) on the same hard disk. Please suggest.


la_lepton

My friend running Core 3 had a similiar problem. Though he had both XPs on the Primary. It could probably be resolved this way:

Run your working XP, then find where hal.dll is located (it is obviously a system file). Then copy it into the same directory in your conked XP. Then try to run the thing.
Maybe, you will get another 'missilg file..." error, but no harm trying.
Arjun

Windows can only run on a primary partition... it's greedy like that and demands to be first in line (much like the company). Meaning it has to be a primary partition on the first drive. It cannot run on a logical partition because Windows doesn't see it as "real", henceforth, they called "logical".

This sounds an AWFUL lot like a Windows question and not a Linux question though.

EDIT: You probably don't want to copy the hal.dll because if I remember correctly from the A+ certification books I worked with, this file is specific for the drive, partition, paging size, etc. Then again, I told the A+ exam people to go screw themselves long ago. Pay $250 to take a test so I can get a piece of paper saying that I know what I know? I learned that mistake with college... "congratulations, you now have a $24,000 piece of paper you can't even use in this state!" haha, very funny. (yes, the "funny" part was sarcasm)

Thanks for the reply, I had already tried copying the hal.dll file from the working xp to the other xp but to no success.

But when there were two xps only, one of them on the logical drive, they both worked well. Having both xps on the primary partition can solve the problem?
Or Is there any mistake in the installation of the linux?Please reply.

There is no mistake with your Linux installation. If you can boot to the one XP and the one Linux, this says that the installation and dual-boot was successful. The problem is in the second Windows. Linux has no write support for NTFS, so that couldn't have altered it in any way. The problem, however, could be that the second Windows is seeing things the wrong way and not "liking" that it's not the primary installation. Also, you might want to make sure the "bootable" flag is enabled in the partition table and that the lilo/grub script is the same for both Windows installations with the exception of where it's pointing too. (hda1, hda2, etc.)