Re: Boot manager for Windows only
From: Chris F Clark (cfc_at_shell01.TheWorld.com)
Date: 11/09/05
- Next message: Chris F Clark: "Re: How to change /home's file system"
- Previous message: Douglas Mayne: "Re: Booting a CD from GRUB"
- In reply to: phulden: "Boot manager for Windows only"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
Date: 09 Nov 2005 12:19:52 -0500
Pal Hulden asked:
> Any recommendations on how to proceed. I thought GRUB was a good start,
> but I really don't manage. And also is GRUB capable of booting any
> Windows partition or will it always hand over to the XP boot loader?
As far as I understand it GRUB is capable of booting "any" windows
partition, but it does so by handing the boot process over to the XP
boot loader.
>From your question, I need to ask, do you have a Windows primary
partition and a Windows logical partition that you wish to boot and
you currently boot your windows logical partition through the boot
loader on the windows primary partition using the menu system built
into the XP loader? If so, you can't fix that with GRUB. Your
Windows logical partition can only be booted through a Windows primary
partition, that's a requirement of the Windows boot loader. No boot
loader can solve that, because it's built-into the Windows booting
process.
In contrast, if you have two Windows primary partitions that boot
indenpendently (i.e. not via the boot menu in the Windows loader),
then GRUB can select between them. I have such a setup (although I
don't actually use GRUB to do the selection, since I am an old-time
"System Commander" user).
How does one build such a setup?
1) Install one version of Windows on your laptop in a primary
partition. You already have done this, since you can boot your
"work" version of XP.
2) Copy this partition to another disk. (I personally like the tool
partition magic for doing so, but there are other choices.) This
process is sometimes called "ghosting" the partition.
3) Install from scratch the second version of Windows on your laptop,
in its own primary partition. Do not install it into a logical
partition. You may wish (or need) to delete the first primary
partition to make this work, which is why having a ghost of the
first partition is a good idea.
4) Ghost that partition also.
5) Now, copy whatever partitions you need to from the second disk such
that you have two primary partitions with distinct Windows versions
on them. Set only one of the primary partitions active. At this
point, when you boot the machine, it should boot only the one
version of Windows you have set active. That version of Windows
knows nothing of your second version of Windows.
6) Install Linux and GRUB. For this step I would recommend installing
GRUB into its own partition (/boot), as that may make things easier
later. If you are lucky, the installation of GRUB will show you
both Windows partitions and allow you to add them into both into
its menu. If that happens, GRUB should allow you to boot all three
OSes. If it doesn't happen, you should still be able to edit your
grub configuration to allow you to boot all three OSes. (Note: boot
loaders usually have two parts. The 2nd part resides in a
partition somewhere and GRUB can load this second part by
"chain-loading" it.)
7) Copy /boot to your USB drive and make it bootable. You may need to
"reinstall" GRUB onto the USB drive, to get the boot loader to load
GRUB. Now, when you insert the key, you should be able to boot any
of the three OSes.
8) Optional: Reinstall the Windows loader as the hard drive boot
loader. This should make booting without the USB key, boot only
one version of Windows.
Please note, this is only a rough sketch of the steps. There are
little details in doing the steps that you will have to work out. It
is also possible to skip some of the steps and get the process to
work. However, when I set up my laptop to run 2 [actually 3] copies
of Windows, plus Linux, this is roughly what I did.
-Chris Clark
- Next message: Chris F Clark: "Re: How to change /home's file system"
- Previous message: Douglas Mayne: "Re: Booting a CD from GRUB"
- In reply to: phulden: "Boot manager for Windows only"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
Relevant Pages
|
