i am new to this linux and am having some difficulty getting this working. If there is any additonal information you need please let me know. I just bought a new computer with no OS installed. I installed Mandrake 9.1 on there and it is working fine. Now I need to install windows xp on the same drive. I have LILO running and when the computer boots it asks what do I want to load, Linux, FailSafe, Windows, or Floppy. If I select windows (i made the partition when I installed Mandrake) I get and error "cannot find kernel images install" and then the "boot: " prompt and nothing works. I dont know the complete features of Linux or how to go from here. Please help, thanks.

You will need to change the BIOS to boot the CD drive first. Then boot the XP install CD. Since you have already created a windows partition XP shoudn't have a problem.

XP will overwrite MBR so you will need to restore lilo. You can use the MDK 1st CD and boot to rescue mode. The select restore lilo from the menu.

hi thx, i tried that but it wont load from the CD i dont know why. i changed it to load from the cdrom first. any other sugestions?

make a boot disk (floppy) for your mandrake, install windows without any worry and *without touching any of the Linux partitions*. But your boot loader will be lost, so now boot your system using the floppy, login as root, and simply reinstall lilo (lilo -v ). I would suggest you to make 2-3 bootdisk, because floppies are quite unreliable as far as my experience is concerned :-).


All the best.

enjoy!

thx, but i still dont know how to install windows. i cant load from the cd first, i cant run the setup.exe once im in mandrake, i dont understand how to get windows installed....

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Linux-General and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

when we change the bios to boot from cd first, what file is it looking for in the cd? perhaps its not there or it never looks in the cd... is there a way to write a script and save the file onto a floopy and then load from floopy as default and have the script goto the setup.exe file on the cd? im not sure if this is possible just suggestions... wut do u guys think?

I do not know of a floppy boot disk for XP. I assume you saved the changes when you select the CDROM as the first boot device.

When you restart the PC does the CDROM drive spin at all?

yes, the cdrom does spin but nothing happens, im assuming it is looking for some kind of linux pkg and doesnt see anything. Is there a particular file that it is looking for so i can check if it is on the cd?

make sure that you have a *bootable* win XP installation CD ...
it seems that the cd u hav is not bootable installation disc at all!

how do i make sure its a "bootable" cd? i also have an orignial win 98 cd and that is not working either. help.

If you go to the MS site, you can download a set of XP floppy install disks that will allow you to get into the install - not an ideal solution but it will work - needed it for an older computer that wouldn't boot off a cd.

thanks! i got windows installed and i got my lilo working but now theres a new problem,

b4 when i started the compter it would ask me which to run
linux
failsafe
windows
floppy

now windows does not appear there, dont know why.

I logged into windows and checked my /mnt and i have /mnt/windows and that has my windows files in it. So now how do I add the 'windows' back into my lilo?

i did "lilo -v" and it did not who windows on there

Well, if you have a bootable cd and still if its not working, you can try out a bit of juggling into your machine.
Actually it worked on my machine: go into the BIOS and look at what it says about your CDROM device, i mn whether its set primary slave or not. If in case, as in my machine it was set to secondary slave and hence, there was some problem(dont know why it happens! havnt ever gone into details). If it is identified as secondary slave then you need to open up your box and pull out a jumper from he CD drive and put it into another slot, but thats quite a geeky job ( thats what i did) .

Oops..i took long posting the previous reply .. ;-) ...
anyways, let me tell you the easiest soln to the new problem, go to Mandrake Control Centre (or simply mcc, through root login on shell)
in the boot options add the windows(specificy the correct partition on which it is installed. Try it out, it quite easy :-)

enjoy!