How do I run Linux and Windows on the same computer?
Linux - GeneralThis Linux forum is for general Linux questions and discussion.
If it is Linux Related and doesn't seem to fit in any other forum then this is the place.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
quick summary:
1) Install Windows XP - don't use one partition for the entire drive unless you have two hard drives.
2) Install Fedora Core 2 - it will (almost certainly) detect XP and set up the boot manager to boot either system.
Here's how I did it. I resized the Windows XP partition to make room for Linux, then I created a new primary partition (of type ext2, ext3, or reiserfs) for the linux root, then a small primary partition for the linux swap, then a logical partition filling the rest of the hard drive. The logical one then gets made into a small FAT32 partition that can be used to transfer files between the two operating systems (both can read and write FAT32, but it's not a good filesystem to use for permanent storage), and the remaining space is used as a linux partition (ext2, ext3, or reiserfs) for /home.
That covers partitions. The distro should take care of everything else... mine did. I wasn't used FC2 though, but I doubt it matters.
First Change your hard drive read write setting to LDA instead of auto. That will fix any boot error problems you will encounter when installing the 2.6+ kernel. If xp was already installed then that should fix your boot problem automatically. If not you must install windows first then linux.
And Fedora isnt the only culprit
Mandrake 10 and Suse 9.1 also implicated
However it only seems to affect Win XP
The article also says the problem seems to arise when partioning a disk not working with pre-existing partitions.
hope this helps
live long and prosper
floppywhopper
you can do one of those work arounds, or you can do the easy solution. Which i've tested on 10 different computers and 4 different distros that caused the boot problem. They are were fixed by simply changing the read/write to LDA, rather than the default Auto setting. Unfortunitly all bios' are different, but you should be able to edit your harddrive info in the bios by clicking on it or hitting enter over the hard drive you are editing. Then find the read/write option and change that to LDA.
Careful with the Bios, if you trully know what your doing there is no need to coincide messing with the bios and installations of the two.
Here is the ghetto but simple way. Install windows xp first on a seperate partition and then install fedora on whatever else is left. Choose NOT to install a boot loder and select to make a boot disk floppy instead.
Now there you got your windows with it's own mbr and whenever you want to use linux just boot up from the floppy disk you made.
A few tips: do not use reiser for the above technique as reiser boot image my be to big for floppy, so use ext2 or 3 instead.
If your windows boot loader ever gets screwed up do the fixmbr or boot into the windows recovery console and type in bootcfg /rebuild to get your windows back.
changing your read/write mode is perfectly safe. I've done its 100's of times with no lost data ever. Also most people do not want to use a boot disk just to load Linux, thats just stupid and annoying. Second fixing your mbr with windows xp recovery console after linux messed it up, does NOT work. You have to either use fdisk or a setup disk that came with your hard drive to completly whipe out the MBR. Even then i've had to sometimes erase the hard drive completely before I could ever install windows on it again. To fix this problem all you have to do is change the read/write mode of your hard drive with the MBR to LBA. Its simple and painless, if you want to go reading 10 pages of howtos that don't always work and involve way too much tweaking then go ahead do it that way.
Changing modes on a hard drive with data is not necessarily "100% safe". It depends on how your hard drive and/or BIOS access data on the drive in different modes. I've had drives in the past that failed to read and write data correctly because the sectors were all ordered differently under LBA (this happened more on older systems). Also, fixing the MBR with XP's recovery tools certainly does work, unless you've done something very stupid to your partition table, in which case no recovery tool in the world will help. It's just unlikely to boot linux afterward, as Microsoft don't tend to care about any non-MS operating systems.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.