Windows XP / FC 4 Dual Boot (2 HD)
I have tried yesterday on a different computer than mine the HD mapping on GRUB and worked fine, but on my computer a Dell Dimension 8200 it didn't work, i only get a blank screen with the word GRUB on the upper left corner of it.
Both OS are on different HD (FC 4 is on the PRIMARY HD, and WINXP is on the SECONDARY HD), when i installed FC 4 on the /dev/hda, it asked me about the bootloader GRUB, and i had the choice of installing GRUB on the first sector of the boot partition of LINUX or on the MBR, according to the previous experience, i put it on the first partition. It did not work ! What if I put it on the MBR (/dev/hda) ? Will my WINXP be ruined ?? Help please !! |
Assuming Windows XP was installed on the primary drive (and assuming you afterwards made that drive the secondary drive) the Windows MBR should be tip-top and writing to the MBR of /dev/hda should be fine. I also think an accidentally erased Windows MBR can be repaired by using the Windows recovery console, allthough of course it is best to avoid this problem. Hope that helps.
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Another Question
What you said is what i really did, in the beginning there was only 1 HD on my PC which has WINXP, now i have added a second HD, and installed Linux FC 4 on it.
Now i have changed the setup of my PC, making the second HD (the one with Fedora) my PRIMARY HD, and the WINXP my SECONDARY HD. I will try that, but before i try it, what did you mean by WINDOWS RECOVERY (on an accidental MBR deletion), is it on the WINXP CD, I just want to make sure that the information on my WINXP HD is safe. Otherwise my wife will kill me ;) Thanks |
Caution: If you installed FC4 on your secondary drive, and have afterwords switched the caballing, that you must change the device map in /boot/grub to correspond to your new definitions.
Failure to do this will result in a "GRUB" with nothing else happening. To change the map, boot from the rescue CD, (or linux rescue at the prompt if you're using the DVD) and either edit /boot/grub/device.map by hand (and also /boot/grub/grub.conf) to correspond to your new caballing, or re-run /sbin/grub-install. |
Problem Solved
Thanks for your advise, I have installed GRUB on the MBR of my Linux HD (Primary HD) and tweaked the /etc/grub.conf Tto map the hardrives, and it worked like a charm, my Linux is running and I can still boot from WinXP.
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