[Nottingham] Mandrake 10, xp dual boot,designing an installation....

[David Aldred]

In message <40FEFA66.309 at ml1.co.uk>, Martin <martin at ml1.co.uk> writes:
>David Aldred wrote:
>> Hello again!
>>  It seems quite a while since I was asking questions regularly here, 
>>but
>> there may be a few more coming!
>>  Right, we now have the laptop running under Mandrake 10 linux, and
>[...]
>
>Phew!
>
>Looks like a good list for discussion at a meeting over a few beers...
>

Sounds a good idea....   Last Post, sometime?

>There is a dual-boot issue that has newly surfaced. There is an article 
>in this month's Linux Format explaining all.
>

I'd noticed the article in Linux Format - but there seems a lot of 
confusion about exactly where the bug lies: some suggest it's GRUB, and 
a LILO boot manager option will sort it all out, others that it's down 
to setting the BIOS to LBA, and others that it's to do with partitioning 
under Kernel 2.6.x.

If, as James indicated, XP will still boot from cold, then that would be 
OK, but it would be better to avoid the problem entirely.

 From what I can see, the likely way to avoid the issue is:

- Partition under Windows using Partition Magic or similar (I haven't 
checked yet - does this create all the partition types Linux needs?)

- Check that the BIOS IDE access Mode is set to LBA

- Install Mandrake 10, selecting LILO as the boot manager

- Pray fervently.

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|\avid Aldred   / David at familyaldred.org.uk  \   Nottingham, England
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