WINDOWS XP & MANDRAKE 10.1 DUAL BOOT ??

[sahil_blues]

i had created a 15gb partition on my only hard disk for installing mandrake 10.1 on it using partition magic 8. i rebooted my pc and installed mandrake. it was working perfectly. then i rebooted again and selected windows xp on the dual boot screen of mandrake. the windows xp logo came for a while and then my computer automatically restarted.
i tried this several times but nothing happened. in despration i reformatted my hard disk and installed windows xp again. cant both mandrake and windows xp installed on seperate partitions(but on the same hard disk) work together with a dual boot??

 

[swatkat]

u can install both XP and Linux (any flavour) on same hard disk (in different partitions) without any problems......
but sometimes it may happen that, when u install the Boot loader (that option of OS u recive at startup) in Master Boot Record, suspiciously Windows files get altered/corrupted, like Hal.dll, boot.ini or any other thing, which results in XP not working....but this can always be repaired using XP CD or even a Windows 98/ MSDOS bootable floppy.....but this is a rare case, but it's happened to u,
dont worry, install Linux again, before that make a backup of these files (just for the sake of it) in Floppy or in Hard Disk in a different folder (dont Zip these files):-
1]Hal.dll
2]boot.ini
3]ntldr
4]ntdetect.com

 

[sahil_blues]

i think you are right...i did install the boot loader in the master boot record while installing mandrake...now when i reinstall it should i install the boot loader again in mbr or should i choose the other option...(though i dont remember the other option but it was pesent)...one other thing, is it necessary to install linux on ext2 type partition only or can it be installed on ntfs??

 

[swatkat]

Linux should be installed in either ext2 or ext3 and it does not support NTFS or FAT.....
The other option of installing Boot loader (GRUB or LILO) is to install it in a separate partition called /boot, but it's better to install it MBR itself......

 

[klinux]

try these :

*jaeger.morpheus.net/linux/ntldr.php
*www.linuxgazette.com/issue36/larriera.html
and
*uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/ext2ifs.htm

u can install grub at start of partition ur installing linux and then use the option to boot linux from ntldr . this way u dont have to touch mbr , if u have important data in win and keep working on lin too .