Two hard disks - dual boot ( XP - Linux ) using microsoft boot loader, not grub

cristy88 · 12-17-2007, 03:35 PM

Hi! I have on my PC 2 hard disk and I want to install on the master Windows Xp and on the slave Linux ( Kubuntu ). I already tried this. First i installed Windows and then Kubuntu.
The problem is that after i install Kubuntu, it also installs Grub. I don't want to boot using Grub because i have to reinstall Windows quite often ( bugs, virus ... Microsoft

) and after i do this the system can't boot properly. So i want to boot using the Microsoft boot loader.
I would appreciate if someone can give me a solution.

Thanks

acid_kewpie · 12-17-2007, 03:42 PM

best solution after a *little* bit of getting your hands dirty is to stick with grub, but have linux as the master and windows as the slave. then use the map-drive options for grub to remap the ide channels when botting into windows. This will make windows think that it's actually the master drive, and reinstalling the bootloader under windows will actually leave it nuking the slave boot sector, not the master at all, leaving the dual boot system fully functional...

saikee · 12-17-2007, 06:26 PM

Section A of the second link in my signature refers. It was written for Users having two hard disks.

It is exactly what acid_kewpie has suggested except with commands shown.

If you want XP's NTLDR to do all the booting the steps have been summarised in Task E4 in the last link of my signature.

I would stick with acid_kewpie advice because using NTLDR is about 3 to 5 times more involved than using Grub for just two systems.