I have linux suse on my computer, but i want boot it from xp boot loader. what files i have to copy from linux CD into my windows XP partition, and how i write the boot.ini in windows XP.... thanx...........

Ive been wondering the same question....

I wanna be able to boot Linux when i want too using the XP boot thing.. like when you press F5 when booting and it give you options on what to do..well i want linux to be in that option.

how? O_o

Assuming Windows is already installed, when you install Linux (on its own partition) you'll get an option to install GRUB (the Linux boot loader) either on the MBR or on the first sector of the Linux partition. Choose the latter (if you choose the former, you'll overwrite the Windows boot loader). Once Linux is running, you can use a utility called dd to copy the boot sector to a file on a floppy. See the dd man page for syntax. Or if you have a raw disk editor, such as NtExplorer, use it to locate the Linux boot sector and copy it to a file. The file will be exactly 512 bytes.

Then add a line in boot.ini pointing to the file, like so:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute /fastdetect
c:\linuxboot.bin="Redhat Enterprise Linux 3.94 beta" /fastdetect

Last line is the new one. Doesn't matter what you call the file.

You can get NtExplorer (disk manager) from http://www.runtime.org. Free version won't let you write back to the disk, but you can write to a file.

BTW, if you have any weird drives connected (RAID, etc) that you're not using for the install, you oughta disconnect them before installing Linux. My RAID drives confused GRUB when I installed it.

What if i dont install grub?? can i just add that line to the XP boot ini so i can load SUSE??

Just forget about it, I dont think you will ever be able to boot linux using a MICROSOFT windows boot loader ... it can't read linux partitions, you can't specify a kernel, etc. You'll have to use a linux boot loader or some other commercial product if you wish ( )

Windows doesn't have to be able to read Linux partitions. It only has to read that file you point to in boot.ini. It will load that, and Linux will taker over from there. If you aren't using GRUB, you'll probably be using LILO. I haven't tried it with LILO, but it should work the same: Locate the GRUB or LILO boot sector (should be the first sector in your Linux partition), copy it to a file, place that file on the main Windows partition in c:\, then point to it in boot.ini, per my previous post.

Works with both LILO and GRUB, I do it since SuSE 6.4 . Type and put the resulting file on your C: drive as described in the earlier posts. (I can even switch beween NT-loader and GRUB boot menus until I'm dizzy ).

@dubonbacon
You don't ask the Win-loader, you tell it to .

bootpart.exe is a handy dandy little utility to do what the dd command in the previous post does, only this works in windows and edits the boot.ini for you.

http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm

That's a great write-up GaryM, but why would anybody want to do this, when Grub, or Lilo could simply give you the option to boot into Windows anyway? It seems to me that boot.ini would point to grub, and then let grub take over. This just seems to be the same thing to me...

Thanx for all..........i know i can use lilo or grub from linux, but i want to know the other way to boot linux from windows bootloader. Windows can't read linux partition, but in linux cd there is some file that can read in windows, so this file can load linux.

Yup -- you can also set up dual booting via GRUB or LILO. But he asked about doing it from Windows. Either way works (usually :-)). As for boot.ini pointing to GRUB, that is what the method I described is doing.