Re: Windows XP upgrade

David Dorward wrote:

> Ed Doyle wrote:
>
>> My concern is how to do this without having Windows XP install wipe out
>> the MBR and make it so I can not boot my linux system. Has anyone done
>> this kind of upgrade and if so, what are the things to be careful of.
>
> Well ... you might be able to pull something off by putting a different
> hard disk in as your primary master and then installing to that ... but it
> would probably be easier to let Windows zap your MBR then use a rescue
> disk to boot Linux and restore it.
>

I'm not quite sure I can visualize what OS is where and what file systems
(important) are on all the partitions. Also, if you are using partition
magic boot loader, that really complicates things.

I will provide this info as a (hopeful) guide:

(MBR -- Windows)
Partition 1 : Windows
Partition 2 : /boot
Partition 3 : swap
Partition 4 : (extended)
Partition 5 : /home
Partition 6 : /

This is the trick --
Install grub (boot loader) on part 2 (/boot) not MBR. Then in fdisk,
'deactivate' part 1 as active and activate part 2. That will cause the
BIOS to look at part 2 for the boot loader. You can then put your entries
in grub to boot windows in case you want to boot into Windows. That's how
I used to run until I completely converted to a Linux desktop.

Hopefully that will work out for you. Drop a line if it does.
.

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