Setting up a dual-boot system by tweaking the Windows boot loader
Another tip from
Gary:
Yes - and no.
Assuming you have the Linux loader installed in the first sector of
hdb1, you use
dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
to make a copy of the boot sector. Then you copy bootsect.lnx to C:\ and
append the line
C:\bootsect.lnx = "Linux"
to your C:\boot.ini - which should result in a boot menu offering both
Windows and Linux.
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, Petre Scheie wrote:
>> I still have plans in the back of my mind for installing Linux on my
>> dad's Dell-with-XP-Home machine. That was the one I wrestled with, with
>> your help, trying to get it to boot from the floppy disk and then run
>> from the Mandrake installed on hdb. I came across the article below,
>> which is attempting a similar thing, of making a dual-boot system
>> without disturbing the Windows installation. In this case, the author
>> uses the NT loader to present the boot menu. To do so, the author
>> describes making a boot file using dd and the boot sector of the linux
>> disk as the input. Would this have worked in what I was trying to do
>> last year? The article says to only copy the first 512 bytes, so the
>> resulting file must just be a pointer to hdb1, right?
>>
04/25/2005