Problems with dual boot and grub

[Marc Schwartz]

On Sun, 2004-03-21 at 19:56, Kenneth Becker wrote:
> Marc Schwartz Wrote:
> 
> >by following the instructions here:
> >
> >http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html
> >
> >  
> >
> Mark:
> You da man. Worked the first time, no problems. So: We use the NT 
> bootloader to start up Linux! Seems that we need something besides the 
> basic Grub manual if Grub's going to do the heavy lifting itself.
> 
> Ken Becker


Ken,

I'm happy that it worked for you.  :-)

Understand that my own use of this particular approach is that I do not
want to overwrite the MBR. I need to essentially preserve the Windows
partition in as transparent a process as possible, since I lease my HW
and need to send it back to Dell when the lease expires.

Thus, I want to be able to both install and remove Linux as easily as
possible, without having to reinstall Windows and the associated
applications.

By using this approach, when time comes to send the HW back, I can
simply wipe Linux and resize the Windows NTFS partition back to its
original configuration using Partition Magic.

If I only had Linux on the system or I was willing to put GRUB on the
MBR, this approach would not be required. Then I would use GRUB to boot
Linux and/or the Windows partition as per typical procedures.

I found the above tutorial when I installed RH 8.0 on my older Dell
i8200 a couple of years back when dual-booting with XP at that time and
kept it around for RH 9 and now FC1 on my i5150. It is a pretty
straight-forward process. As I mentioned in a prior post, the key is to
remember that you need to recreate the boot sector file and copy it to
Windows if you should re-partition and/or resize any partitions on your
system.

I should also note that I do need to "force LBA" on both of my systems,
given where the Linux partition starts (ie. > cylinder 1024). Failing
this, I did have trouble booting.

Cheers,

Marc