Upgrading MS Windows on a Dual Booting Machine
I currently have two computers, a tower and a laptop, which dual boot v9.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional using the GRUB boot loader. I'm getting ready to upgrade W2000 to Windows XP Professional and would like to know what alligators are out there in the swamp just waiting to rise up and nip me? In particular, am I going to foul up anything with regard to booting? Thanks in advance.
On Sunday 18 January 2004 12:47, Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
getting ready to upgrade W2000 to Windows XP Professional and would like to know what alligators are out there in the swamp just waiting to rise up and nip me?
Dear Dr. Molnar, ~ maybe, it would be handy to run your Windows XP Professional on Linux using VMware? best wishes ____________ sent on Linux ____________
On Sunday 18 January 2004 07:47 am, Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
I currently have two computers, a tower and a laptop, which dual boot v9.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional using the GRUB boot loader. I'm getting ready to upgrade W2000 to Windows XP Professional and would like to know what alligators are out there in the swamp just waiting to rise up and nip me? In particular, am I going to foul up anything with regard to booting?
Thanks in advance. ================
You only have 2 that I can think of right away, WindowsXP and Microsoft and I can virtually guarantee you that both will bite you! ;o) Lee -- --- KMail v1.5.94 --- SuSE Linux Pro v9.0 --- Registered Linux User #225206 On any other day, that might seem strange...
On Sunday 18 January 2004 12:47 pm, Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
I currently have two computers, a tower and a laptop, which dual boot v9.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional using the GRUB boot loader. I'm getting ready to upgrade W2000 to Windows XP Professional and would like to know what alligators are out there in the swamp just waiting to rise up and nip me? In particular, am I going to foul up anything with regard to booting?
Thanks in advance.
Of course you are going to foul up booting, it goes with the territory. Before you start, understand how M$ boots and how Linux boots on your setup and make sure that you have an alternative means of booting Linux [floppy, boot CD] to be able to log on as root. All an M$ install does is rewrite the partition table, so that the M$ partition always boots and bypasses GRUB etc. Which causes absolute horror and shock as countless messages on this list and countless other lists will demonstrate. When you are done installing M$, go to its partition management [not sure what it is in XP] and set the partition with GRUB as the active partition. Or boot Linux as you will already have practiced, and reinstall GRUB. No big deal, if you understand how it works in the first place, but a nightmare if you install XP and try to understand a setup you can no longer access. Vince
Stephen, I recently reinstalled W2K on a dual-boot system with GRUB in the MBR. W2K did not touch GRUB at all. Mind you, this was a reinstall (to c:\W2K leaving C:\WINNT intact) without formatting or changing the partition table in any way. So, you may have a chance with WinXP if you do an in-place upgrade, without formatting your existing W2K partition or changing the partition table in any way. As Vince pointed out however, it's good to have an alternate means of booting your Linux partition should XP hose your current GRUB installation. Also, you can use the Windows boot manager to boot Linux. The technique is documented in the SuSE Administration manual, and I would do this now as an extra precaution. Note that setting this up is easier under Windows if you install the Recovery Console first, because this will make the Windows boot loader visible if it isn't already, and also drop another entry into the Windows boot.ini file for illustration purposes. (Getting Windows to boot Linux requires copying the first 512K of the Linux boot partition to a file on the Windows partition, and then making an entry in Windows' boot.ini file that references this file). I hope this is helpful. Mark On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 07:47, Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
I currently have two computers, a tower and a laptop, which dual boot v9.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional using the GRUB boot loader. I'm getting ready to upgrade W2000 to Windows XP Professional and would like to know what alligators are out there in the swamp just waiting to rise up and nip me? In particular, am I going to foul up anything with regard to booting?
Thanks in advance. --
L. Mark Stone President Reliable Networks of Maine, LLC 477 Congress Street, 5th Floor Portland, ME 04107 Tel: (207) 772-5678 Cell: (917) 597-2057 Email: LMStone@RNoME.com Web: http://www.RNoME.com
Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
I currently have two computers, a tower and a laptop, which dual boot v9.0
First of all, dual booting is booting more than one OS off the same bootable partition. Installing more than one OS to more than one partition and using a boot manager to choose the system to boot is called multibooting.
and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional using the GRUB boot loader. I'm getting ready to upgrade W2000 to Windows XP Professional and would like to
Upgrade? You really think replacing an OS that (at least when new) respected your privacy with one that reports hardware configuration changes (and who knows what else) home to big brother is an upgrade?
know what alligators are out there in the swamp just waiting to rise up and nip me? In particular, am I going to foul up anything with regard to booting?
Make sure you have a working Linux rescue boot method that you know how to use. -- "The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of governmental power." General Douglas MacArthur Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/partitioningindex.html
Felix Miata wrote:
Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
I currently have two computers, a tower and a laptop, which dual boot v9.0
First of all, dual booting is booting more than one OS off the same bootable partition. Installing more than one OS to more than one partition and using a boot manager to choose the system to boot is called multibooting.
I think we're picking nits here, but I've never seen that definition. dualboot - booting two different OSs from the same machine. multiboot - booting two or more OSs from the same machine. Have you a resource for your defintion? -- Until later, Geoffrey esoteric@3times25.net Building secure systems inspite of Microsoft
Geoffrey wrote:
Have you a resource for your defintion?
You snipped it from your reply. Here's another: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Multiboot-with-GRUB.html You'll notice the title is not "Dualboot-with-GRUB". -- "The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of governmental power." General Douglas MacArthur Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/partitioningindex.html
Doing a XP reinstall on a laptop, using Toshiba's-XP, I've had XP reformat the intire harddrive NTFS and totally wipe out linux. I don't know if it will be a problem on an update. If it leaves Linux on the harddrive it will probably overwrite your MBR. Use you boot cd and repair. Rich On Sun January 18 2004 4:47 am, Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
I currently have two computers, a tower and a laptop, which dual boot v9.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional using the GRUB boot loader. I'm getting ready to upgrade W2000 to Windows XP Professional and would like to know what alligators are out there in the swamp just waiting to rise up and nip me? In particular, am I going to foul up anything with regard to booting?
Thanks in advance.
-- C. Richard Matson
On Sunday 18 January 2004 7:47 am, Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
I currently have two computers, a tower and a laptop, which dual boot v9.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional using the GRUB boot loader. I'm getting ready to upgrade W2000 to Windows XP Professional and would like to know what alligators are out there in the swamp just waiting to rise up and nip me? In particular, am I going to foul up anything with regard to booting?
One possible problem is that after the Windows installation, your machine may boot directly to Windows and never give Grub (or Lilo) a chance to get into action. The solution (for Grub) is after Windows is all installed, start up your system from the Linux installation CD. Then start the "rescue system". Mount your Linux root partition (/dev/hda2, say) at /mnt with mount /dev/hda2 /mnt Then change the root to /mnt with chroot /mnt Now mount what can be mounted with mount -a which will utilize your Linux /etc/fstab. Finally, call /sbin/grub-install, which will reinstall the Grub bootloader. You may need to twiddle the Grub configuration (you can do it through Yast) to get your Windows partition back onto the Grub boot menu. Paul Abrahams
On Sunday 18 January 2004 14:47, Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
know what alligators are out there in the swamp just waiting to rise up and nip me? In particular, am I going to foul up anything with regard to booting?
If you upgrade an existing Windows NT based (i.e. NT/2k/XP), Windows setup will not tamper with the actual boot loader, since that is already installed. At least, I haven't had that happen to me - ymmv. Usually it just changes your c:\boot.ini (NT bootloader's config file) to say Winows XP instead of whatever you had. Even if it does change the MBR, just boot off your SUSE cd and fix it as described earlier. Hans
participants (10)
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BandiPat -
C. Richard Matson -
Felix Miata -
Geoffrey -
Hans du Plooy -
L. Mark Stone -
Paul W. Abrahams -
pinto -
Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. -
Vince Littler