I am presently booting Win 98, Win XP, Linux - Knoppix, Mepis & Xandros on one machine and the same with a second but with Fedora C4 in place of Knoppix. This is without problems using the windows Boot.ini file. All these OS/Distros are blissfully unaware of each other and there is no cross interference.

This took quite a while to achieve with the inevitable stuff up. However, once this was done and the dust settled it was quite easy. Actually there is no limit (within reason) to the number if Linux/Windows OS you can boot into.

I have detailed the procedure in a 2 page PDF file 36Kb.
Copy this link into your download manager:

Go to: members.dodo.com.au/~nmj/download/multiboot.pdf

Good luck
Olkar

This is pretty good!...keep such stuff going on...

Good job!

The only question i have is why not simply use linux boot loader (my choice is lilo) and skip most of the worries with windows boot loaders?

May be ppl find it easier to use the Windows Boot Loaders (as they find it easier to operate...)..

Linux based Boot - Loaders will overcome, once people are made aware of its usability

I find the Windows boot loader (via bootpart) more flexable and the MBR remains unchanged

The problem with allowing grub or lilo to be written to the MBR is if u decide to remove a distro it can be tricky. Installing an additional distro will also write to the MBR and then the lilo/grub may need to be manually edited for booting.

Olkar

my computer doesn't have a floppy - does that make this method undoable?

tia...

edited - i'm trying to create a winxp bootable cd.

i have winxp and can't find bootsect.dos. is this a win98 only file? am i fine with only msdos.sys and boot.ini in winxp?

tia again...

Bootpart 2.5 comes with it's own instrustions to add linux that seem simple. read bootpart.txt in the bootpart directory. Can you explain this with detail but straight to the point.


To add Linux
============
For Linux, you must install Lilo at the beginning of the Linux partition
(as with OS/2 boot manager) and then add the Linux partition with Bootpart:

When you install Linux or run liloconfig, select "Superblock of the root
linux partition" as location of Lilo. In my sample, this adds the line
"boot=/dev/sdb4" on the file /etc/lilo.conf

Iv just installed windows xp pro onto my debian box and as i had so much trouble of finding out how to do it, here is a howto.

no. 1) Make sure you have your rescue CD, I think you can download it from your distros web site

no. 2) Type in su in any command line and type your root password. Then run fdisk and copy + paste it into a text editor, then print it.

no. 3)If you have not already, create a partition just for windows, it needs to be a fat32 file system. For how to create a partition, search this website for "creating new partitions"

no. 4)Install Windows on your set aside partition

no. 5)After you have totally installed it, the boot from your rescue disk and at the prompt type in "rescue" or press help

no. 6)Once you get to the command prompt, type in

mkdir /mnt/sysimage
chroot /mnt/sysimage

(DON'T WORRY IF YOU GET AN ERROR MESSAGE)

/sbin/grub-install /dev/?

(WHERE ? IS YOUR ROOT PARTITION)
FIND THIS OUT BY LOOKING AT YOUR PRINTOUT AND SOMEWHERE IT SHOULD SAY SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF
Device Mounted On
/DEV/HD? /

Thats the hard part done.

no. 7) Reboot your system and you should get a friendly looking grub welcome screen. If not, something gone wrong. Repeat steps 5 - 6

no. 8) Go to your favorite command line, type in su and then your password, and then open your favorite text editor

no. 9) In the text editor, open
/boot/grub/menu.lst
or
/boot/grub/grub.conf
and then at the bottom type in something like this -

title Windows XP Pro
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

For title, you can call it whatever you want eg Windows ME or Win 2000

For root, hd0,0 refers to the boot drive. It gets a bit confusing here. (hd0,0) means hda1.(hd1,1) means hdb2, and so on. So if your vfat (windows) partition is at hda3, instead of typing (hd0,0) you would type (hd0,2) If you dont understand or/and are a , then just post a reply, ill be happy to help.

Type in the rest, and walla!

no.10) Reboot your system and see whether it works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again, if you are a or dont understand anything, please reply below

Ilya

To GNewbie

Bootsect.DOS is W98 related and is created when u install XP after 98 (if no prior 98 then no bootsect.dos)

U don't need floppy use CD-RW

Can also use flash (USB) drive if your BIOS allows boot from there.

Boot.ini is only a text file and is easily edited

Bootpart will work with any OS as it reflects a mirror of the MBR

The strange boot line in boot.ini of

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINXP= "etc"

is is a different way of presenting the location of XP boot files using the ARC path naming convention (Advanced RISC Computing) Using bootpart to achieve the same thing is OK if U wish to try.

I personally don't use floppy to boot into linux but it is important that you keep a good copy of the MBR to restore on some type of removable media.

Make sure that the boot files (lilo or grub)of your linux distro are in the root directory of its partition (this is normally done auto) Fedora C4 is slightly different and they (grub) resides in the boot partition.


Good luck
Olkar

Olkar, thanks for the good tutorial. qtparted didn't resize my partition, so i ended up using ranigh partition manager out of the ultimate boot cd. also, i had to run the bootparted (i think that's the name) steps to update boot.ini off of the command prompt. when i tried to run it in dos, it didn't work.

i'm up and running and you've helped.

thanks!