Some Fedora books(bible, unleash,..) stated that dual-boot linux(2.6) with windows xp causes xp inaccessible problem. They indicated that it was a bug in the kernel 2.6 or Fedora's installer problem. Is it true? Is there anyone trying to install linux dual-boot with windows xp which causes this kind of problem? If it is true, how to fix it?

By the way, is it possible to install several different distros (like Fedora, Debian, etc.) multi-boot with windows xp on one machine at the same time? If it is possible, how the partition works during installation? (such as how "/" and "/boot" distinguish between different linux distros? Do I need more than one "/boot" for different distros?)


Any suggestion will be very much appreciated!

I don't have any trouble booting various linux distros with xp. I have four of them on the go, including Blag which is based on fedora.

The easiest way I have found to multiboot is to use a bootmanager to boot all the operating systems. The boot manager is installed to the mbr. You do not need separate partitions for boot files - you install the linux boot loaders to the root partitions not the mbr. With this method you can install/uninstall to your heart's content.

You can install lilo or grub bootloaders to the mbr and boot windows and linux distros too if you so wish although it does get more complicated and time consuming.

Remember, some linux distros do not give you the option to install the bootloaders to the root partition and they will overwrite the mbr.

http://gag.sourceforge.net/

When fedora core 3 was still unstable I was able to dual boot no problems. If it helps any I had previously installed XP on my system and used partition magic to give fedora somewhere to go. I then installed fedora, manually setting up the partitions and everything worked with no problems at all using grub. Then I mounted the windows filesystem in linux and downloaded an ext3 driver for windows and never had a problem. I don't dual boot anymore though so don't have any more info to offer.

Thanks for your replies. One thing I forgot to mention is that my windows xp is sp2. Will it be the probem for inaccessibility of the xp?

Sp2 has not caused me any grief.