Need to reinstall windows but dont want to kill my linux

droseman · 02-20-2007, 08:22 AM

Hi,

I currently have a dual booting system on 2 separate hdds, xp home on one and ubuntu on the other. All was well until windows starts freezing for no particular reason, so I though that I would reinstall my windows. Problem is that GRUB is installed in the mbr on hd1 and I dont want to end up with not being able to boot Linux. I am a bit of a newbie at this so I would appreciate some pointers to go forwards before I do the reinstall.

Thanks
Dave

StargateSteve · 02-20-2007, 08:37 AM

I haven't installed windows for a while, but why don't you just install it on the second drive, with the first drive un-plugged? Then, as long as the second drive is partitioned similarly, you should just be able to plug in the first drive, and the world will be a happy place, again.

note: you might need to edit grub's menu.1st file, but as long as the partitions are aranges the same way, everything should work. I don't believe the partitions would need to be the same size.

qdlaty · 02-20-2007, 09:08 AM

you can always boot live distro, chroot to your linux and restore grub bootloader. Simple. Done it many times.

J.W. · 02-20-2007, 01:33 PM

Reinstalling Windows will cause the master boot record (MBR) to be overwritten (which killed your bootloader) but your Linux system will be intact. All you need to do is reinstall your bootloader in Linux