Installing WinXP after Mandrake 10
 

Well, it turns out that I may need WinXP as well, and I do not intend to use it as much, but to help keep the computers here happy with networking, I need help.

Today I picked up a 40 gig WD Caviar hard drive, and I installed Windows XP on it. I noticed something that made my blood BOIL:

Windows XP prompted me to remove my Linux partition! I had a perfectly brand new HD with no partitions on it, and I tried to format it NTFS. No big deal. I then selected to install XP on it, and it refused to saying it "needed to install files onto my other partition, but it wasn't an XP partition so I had to format it." Screw that! I disconnected the other drives and it didn't prompt me to do it again and complied with the installation.

Anyways, I have XP installed and working on that partition, but LILO doesn't detect XP on the boot loader. I tried reinstalling the Bootloaders (Windows first, then LILO) but I still see no option to boot to Windows. I am running Mandrake 10.0 official.

Can someone help me here?

What exactly do you mean by you tried reinstalling the bootloaders? The Windows one would just overwrite everything and just make the computer start in Windows...

As for LILO in Mandrake...I'm not sure...been a while since I last used Mandrake...but I know somewhere in the control panel or wherever you can configure your LILO boot loader...so you can just do that...and tell it where your Windows is...etc...etc...and it should work...IN THEORY...IN THEORY...

Id say that the majority of people (more often than not) already have the windows installed and then install their linux distro afterwards (well after doing the partitioning thing, that is).

Then when you install the linux distro (in my case, Mandy 10 Official powerpack), I just tell it to install LILO and it offer's me linux (as default, which I alway's have to change for my partner's benefit), linux-nonfb (no frame buffer, that is), failsafe, floppy and more often than not, it detect's my windows XP install as "NT" (which I change to "windows", as default, again for "er in door's").

Then (well, in theory) you shouldn't have to meddle with the boot loader, apart from name and default changes.

Erm, if you really wanted to, I understand that you can also make the windows boot loader boot linux - Sorry, you'll have to search here/google, as I've never done that (happy with LILO :D).

regards

John