trouble booting linux auditor as dual OS with win xp
 

hi,
i have a panasonic cf-71 toughbook laptop and i split my hdd in three partitions, there was one 256 mb partition that i used as a swap partition to install auditor, and a 2.5 gb partition that i installed auditor on, but as i also want to use the laptop for windows(im used to it and like it for multimedia:))i have another partition (15 gb) where i installed windows xp on there, and now i cant boot on auditor anymore, i used the f8-f10 keys to get to the screen where i select wich OS i wanna boot from, but the only OS it finds is the windows xp,:(does anyone know how to get it to boot linux plz??

My impression was you should always install Windows before installing Linux to avoid Windows replacing the boot manager etc. Were you using lilo or grub as your boot manager before? If grub, you could try using the super grub cd to restore the grub boot manager.

http://geocities.com/supergrubdisk/

grub vs lilo
 

Is this grub super boot CD compatible with systems that used lilo?

Alianzap: Are you talking about Auditor Security Collection?

If so, we have a much newer version out now called BackTrack. I would advise taking a look at that instead :)

Also, for the other Q's - Auditor used Lilo.

As for loading Auditor first, then windows, there is a method posted on our forums you can try that may help you out. Have a search through at
no-links-for-me-yet-hxxp://forums.remote-exploit.org/index.php
(Sorry cannot post a link here yet!)

If I find the post, I'll add a specific link here. But it's there in the forums somewhere if you want to take a look ;)

Just search at www.forums.remote-exploit.org and u will find tons of links.............
You should try to upgrade to Backtrack2 it is very well updated and contains best features of Auditor and Whax


for now you shall format ur HDD first install WinXp the Backtrack2.....for dual booting check BackTrack2 wiki

Its really intended to fix problems booting with grub, though the web site states they have beta support for fixing problems booting with lilo.

I suggest you take a look at the DUAL BOOTING WINDOWS XP AND BT2 tutorial at http://www.tutorials.thetazzone.com/...al.php?p=78361 , it claims "This method of dual booting will not require you to format the windows part of your hard drive and should not corrupt your current installation in any way. It also presumes that you have one partiton with Windows installed."

so your saying if i would reinstall auditor on the 2.5 gb partition i could boot from it??you had lotsa methods and much faster reply's than i expected..just joined yesterday and figured it would take longer to get a reply, but i kindoff got the impression here that windows removes the boot files of linux and it would be easiest to reinstall auditor...i tried installing windows first already and then auditor destroyed it...also, i dont have the internet resources right now to download large files such as backtrack, i have an auditor cd handy along with linspire 6, suse, and ubunto, (auditor was the only cd that my laptop read, i'd have to reburn the others;))

Its really a question of whose boot manager is installed since Windows boot manager doesn't let you boot non-windows operating systems. Thats why you install Windows first, so it can't muck things up. I've never used Auditor so I have no idea why when it replaced the boot manager with lilo it didn't support dual booting. When I installed Ubuntu I didn't have to do anything to make Grub add support for booting XP.

http://www.linuxclues.com/articles/10.htm talks about how to make a Linux rescue disk that uses mkrescue to solve dual booting problems. If you re-installed Auditor you might be able to create that disk and use it to fix your booting problem. I think Knoppix has mkrescue with the --iso option , if it does then Auditor should too (since its supposedly based on Knoppix).

You could always buy a copy of backtrack 2 for $1.75 from http://www.linuxcd.org/ or $1.65 from http://www.alllinuxcd.com/ if its not practical to download it.