dual booting with XP

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symon1980

dual booting with XP

Post by symon1980 »

how the heck can i dual boot Windows XP with linux mint? hehe
i only need Windows for an assignment im doing in which i need to use a program called visio which
won't emulate in linux...........
i have 2 sata hard drives
1 with mint
1 with xp
if i have both plugged in at the same time, xp will stuff up my linux drive by writing its mbr to it, which stuffs up my linux install
the only way i've been able to have both o.s'es is by unplugging whichever one i don't need at the time, and booting into that particular hard drive.
my linux hard drive is /dev/sda1 and my windows drive should be /dev/sda2
any ideas?
i've messed a bit with grub/menu.lst but havn't been successful yet
:(
?
thanx
symon.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Husse

Re: dual booting with XP

Post by Husse »

if i have both plugged in at the same time, xp will stuff up my linux drive by writing its mbr to it
eh?
Not that I know....
But OK leave both drives connected, then boot the live CD and repair grub as adviced in the wiki
http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... _your_grub
symon1980

Re: dual booting with XP

Post by symon1980 »

that helps. thanx :)
JAK
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Re: dual booting with XP

Post by JAK »

sundayrefugee wrote:PS: It's "Windows", not "Windows". If you can't spell, pay attention to Firefox 2 as it will automatically highlight when you misspell words ;)
I agree. If someone is searching for help on this forum, they will not likely type "Windblows" and so they will miss some of the search hits. Although there's a lot of buzz on any Linux forum about the inadequacies of Vista, I don't remember reading anything about people "hating" Windows. It's OK to use Windows, it serves its purpose at times, just not as my main desktop anymore. Having switched over to Linux full time since Cassandra, I must say, it is refreshing to be able to surf the net without BitDefender popping up a dozen times a session telling me about some dll or exe file in my browser cache wanting to destroy my system. I do a complete image backup ever night of my Windows XP Pro install and that has saved my butt a number of times due to aggressive viruses from surfing.
At this point I'm way off topic... sorry.

Please everyone, use the correct spelling on topics as much as possible for the benefit of everyone else. Just my 2 cents (USD) :wink:

Here is a link for great dual boot tutorials:
http://apcmag.com/the_definitive_dualbo ... bystep.htm
.
symon1980

Re: dual booting with XP

Post by symon1980 »

hahahaha. any linux user would agree that win-blows. unless your a hardcore gamer :)
but anyways....lets not get into a debate :p even though you guys are being sarcastic im assuming :)
as for the grub thing, i havn't tried it yet, i will.... a friend of mine did it for me last nite, and it wrecked my linux grub... somehow :s
so i reinstalled grub... then tried each hard drive (1 with windows xp, and other with mint) one at a time, not plugged in at the same time. they both booted fine when i unplugged the other.... as soon as i plugged in both hard drives.... windows xp would boot, and my linux mint grub was buggered up again... so i know that Windows is doing something dodgey to my linux install here..... but anyways... i will read the info that was given to me, and study it up and try it.
thanx guys :p
symon.
Husse

Re: dual booting with XP

Post by Husse »

@ symon1980
Seems to me you are doing something wrong. Windows does not change the MBR of another hard disk than the one its on - well, not quite - it can write a partition table in any (?) MBR
There is a risk that you have "odd" hardware, like macbook (not with XP) and some Dell with recovery partitions
And this is not a Toshiba laptop because some of them rewrites the MBR so Linux can't boot :evil:
Tell us what your hardware is, you may not be able to use gfxgrub which is used by Mint from Celena
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