How to dual boot without using MBR
 

I had FC-5 dual booting successfully with Windows XP Pro, sp2. But FC-5 put Grub on the MBR. Eventually I couldn't get into Windows. I think FC-5 corrupted the MBR. I just reinstalled Windows and I won't reinstall FC-5 until I learn how to install it, for dual booting, without using the MBR.

I remember reading something about needing something like NT boot loader to load Linux so you wouldn't corrupt the MBR but I don't know the name of the article or where it is.

Can somebody please tell me, in depth, what I need to do or direct me to info that will. I "googled" dual booting but most of the examples were on old technology.

Thanks,

royeo

DL GAG 4.6. Or select Advanced, put Grub on the linux part, Not in MBR
 

Should be able to place Grub boot loader ON the linux partition, not in MBR. During installation, change partitioning, select Advanced.
What sizes are your existing partitions??
& those planned for FC5? btw, search Dual Boot in these forums, lot better info.
Did you try using "Graphical Boot Manager" [aka GAG 4.6] to fix Grub before wiping & reinstalling (GAG 4.6)? It helped me a lot! GL

google "bootpart" and hit the "I feel lucky" button for a win app that'll help

"linux ntldr" (not in quotes) would be a good google for info on using windows' loader to boot other loaders. add dd to the search for info on using the dd command instead of bootpart to copy the boot sector of a partition.

you want to install the linux boot loader to the "root superblock", which might be an option without going advanced (alternative to MBR or to no loader installation at all)... I haven't used Fedora though

Well I am a linux newbie myself, but here's how I did it.

I installed LILO on the Superblock(?) of my Linux partition. I also had a copy of Slax burned to CD. I booted into Slax from the CD and then copied the boot.lnx file onto my usb memory stick. to do this I went to terminal and typed:

dd if=/dev/hda2 of=boot.lnx bs=512 count=1
(my root is on hda2 but use whatevers appropriate for your setup)

Close down terminal and go find your root folder in linux then copy boot.lnx to floppy/memory stick.

Then I rebooted and went back into windows and copied the boot.lnx file to c:\.

Depending what version of windows you are using, you then need to find the windows boot.ini file. On XP got to start->Run-> type 'sysdm.cpl'. Click advanced tab, then under startup and recovery click settings.

Add a line at the end of all the text that says:

c:\boot.lnx="Your distro of Linux here"

save it and then reboot. voila, a dual boot linux/windows box.

I ran in a similar problem with dual boot in an FC5 installation. There seems to be only problems if one has more than one disk. On a different PC I installed before various OS's, among them FC5, and it was always completely simple to get a dual boot: The install scripts would make it almost completely automatically.

Now with two disks, I don't know how to get dual boot:
I have a Dell Dimension 4100 with the original about 20 GB disk plus an added disk with about 80 GB. Windows is on a 8 GB partition of the old disk, that is, on hda1. I installed FC5, overwriting a previously installed Suse 8.2 system, and allowed complete overwriting of all linux partitions. Now I have a working FC5 system, but to my surprise I can't boot windows anymore. Also, the 2nd disk, hdb, is not directly visible, but instead mulled into some logical device that seems to contain both the linux part on the hda as well as the entire hdb disk. Here is what I get with df:

$df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
95003304 4932000 85167576 6% /
/dev/hda2 101105 14125 81759 15% /boot
tmpfs 257724 0 257724 0% /dev/shm
$

And the following is the file /boot/grub/menu.lst:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,1)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora Core (2.6.17-1.2174_FC5)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.17-1.2174_FC5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.17-1.2174_FC5.img
title Fedora Core (2.6.15-1.2054_FC5)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

There is nothing of windows unless it's "Other". But Other can't boot, there is
no choice during bootup.

I wonder how I get it back: As little as I like windblows, I need it occasionally. This ought to work with grub, I don't see why one would have to go back to lilo. But what's the trick?