[sclug] Grub and Windows XP

[Alex Butcher]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006, James Wyper wrote:

> My father's PC used to have Win98 on hda and Ubuntu on hdb, bootloaded by GRUB on the MBR of hda.  He then installed Windows XP on hda and unsurprisingly can't boot Ubuntu any more since the MBR has been overwritten.
>
> Years ago if you wanted to dual boot an NT-style OS and Linux you needed to run the NT bootloader first and then LILO or whatever.  Is this still the case?  In other words would it be better for me to
>
> (a) reinstall GRUB on hdb, take a copy of the boot sector and place it on hda, and use the WinXP bootloader to choose between this boot sector (and hence GRUB on hdb) and Windows
>
> or
>
> (b) just reinstall GRUB on the MBR of hda and dispense with the Windows bootloader?

No, c):

Make the /boot or / partition the only active (aka bootable) partition, and
put GRUB on the bootblock of that partition. The machine should then boot
from the BIOS to the XP MBR to the bootblock of the active partition (i.e.
GRUB). You can then add a section like:

title Other
         rootnoverify (hd0,0)
         chainloader +1


to boot Windows from GRUB.

> James.

Best Regards,
Alex.
-- 
Alex Butcher, Bristol UK.                           PGP/GnuPG ID:0x5010dbff

"[T]he whole point about the reason why I think it is important we go for
identity cards and an identity database today is that identity fraud and
abuse is a major, major problem. Now the civil liberties aspect of it, look
it is a view, I don't personally think it matters very much."
  - Tony Blair, 6 June 2006 <http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page9566.asp>