GNU/LINUX

Thursday, October 14, 2004

WinXP + RH9 : Dual Boot : using Windows Bootloader

Assuming that you have two complete operating systems on your machine -an Xp which boots and runs, and Linux which is installed but not bootable. You now need to add Linux to the Xp boot options ...

Start Linux in rescue mode from the install cd. This allows you to access the / file system. Set the root
of your file system to the hard disc installed Linux:
cd /mnt/sysimage
chroot /mnt/sysimage
Copy the boot sector of the / partition into a plain file
dd if=/dev/hda3 of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
(Change "hda3" to the name of your raw disc slice; use df to find out if you're not sure ;-) )

Save the file bootsect.lnx to some media that you can also read in Xp. Preferrebly in a Floppy disk.

may run "mcopy /bootsect.lnx a:" . If you don't have mcopy, download the tools, it is in mtools ( http://mtools.linux.lu/)

Reboot into Xp. Log in as a user with admin rights, and start a command window.
cd c: load in the boot sectors via FTP (BINARY mode!!)
attrib -h -s -r \boot.ini
(You have now set the system file boot.ini so that you can get at it / edit it).

f) Edit boot.ini, adding the line
C:\BOOTSECT.LNX=linux
at the end, and rehide the file
attrib +h +s +r \boot.ini

The job is done; XP's boot loader will now offer you Linux or
Xp whenever you reboot the machine!

Note: I have tested it 10 times and the booting gets freezed for atleast 5 times.
I always prefer GRUB in case you wish to have dual boot...

---------

:)