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Dual Booting with Windows XP?

Posted by Cliff on from the computers-with-multiple-personalities dept.

budGibson asks: "I have just purchased a Dell system for home that will be arriving shortly with Windows ME installed. It has a (free) upgrade coupon for Windows XP. After using Windows 2000 on a development machine at work, XP is attractive because of its likely good stability for a Windows. Although I prefer Linux, compatibility with my graduate and undergraduate business students requires that I have some version of Windows." Put simply, is XP dual-boot friendly?

"I am familiar with dual-booting (and the pratfalls of dual booting) using various versions of Win9x. I understand NT is harder because of the way bootloader installs and also the fact that it uses NTFS. Windows XP sounds like it will be harder still because of its "registration" feature. I have searched in Redhat (my preferred distribution) and at the LDP (Linux Documentation Project) but have not found any treatment of this.

I think one option might be the commercial product Partition Magic by PowerQuest but would prefer to stick with an open-source method, preferrably one supported by a distribution. Does anyone have any experience with or insights about dual-booting with XP? Have I missed some treasure-trove of documentation?"

7 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. Per Microsoft by eric2hill · · Score: 4, Informative

    Search Microsoft and ye shall find the answer.

    --
    LOAD "SIG",8,1
    LOADING...
    READY.
    RUN
    1. Re:Per Microsoft by eric2hill · · Score: 4, Informative

      And in case you don't know, install Linux first onto it's own partition, then XP on a second primary partition. Installing XP second will set it's boot manager to default. You'll simply need to add Linux to the BOOT.INI file (on the root of the boot drive, where the NT loader is). Documentation on the BOOT.INI file is available all over the web.

      --
      LOAD "SIG",8,1
      LOADING...
      READY.
      RUN
    2. Re:Per Microsoft by aka-ed · · Score: 2, Informative
      Consider this from the support guy's POV. If Linux installs incorrectly and screws up your boot (and don't tell me there's no user error or install flaws that can cause this, there certainly are!), why should MS be fixing that? It's not their issue.

      --
      I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
  2. XP first, Linux distro second by STSeer · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm dual-booting with XP, no problem. Install XP first, then Linux distro and let it's Lilo/GRUB write over XP's loader.

    1. Re:XP first, Linux distro second by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Uh, be careful here...I just bought a HP, with WinXP (home edition), and it has a structure similar to NT 4.0..that is, if you overwrite the MBR, you will lose NT boot functionality...so remember kiddies..

      1. LILO ON first sector of BOOT partition
      2. edit c:\boot.ini
      3. "LINUX"=C:\BOOTSECT.LNX

      BTW: Stupid HP has a 4GB, thats right, GB! "recovery partition"..that stores all the related XP recovery crap..I suggest backing up that stuff on a few CDR's...don't loose it!..the joys of linux, in being able to mount a "hidden" partition :)

      This is with RedHat 7.1, mileage always varys!

  3. XOSL -- http://xosl.sourceforge.net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    try out XOSL.. Install it in a dedicated partition at the beginning of your drive (the boot partition).. and from there you can boot an OS on any other partition.. works amazingly well, it only requires a bit of planning.. no playing around with messy MBR loaders

  4. Windows XP is very dualboot friendly by Glonk · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've got Windows XP Professional and Mandrake 8.1 on a dualboot system as I type this. I originally just had Windows XP on it, but installed Mandrake two days ago.

    Windows XP can use FAT32 or NTFS. If you're serious about accessing files fully from Linux, make it uses FAT32. There is read-only support for NTFS in the kernel (I had to recompile to get it in Mandrake, though), but the write support for NTFS is very dangerous and experimental. Also note that if you're using Partition Magic on XP, you MUST use version 7 (brand new). Previous versions aren't compatable with the version of NTFS on Windows XP (I speak from personal experience).

    Dualbooting has no impact on activation or anything. Dualbooting with Windows XP is exactly like it was for Windows 2000.

    And finally: The NT Bootloader works differently than GRUB or LILO. How mine works is GRUB appears first, I then select 'NT' or 'Linux' or 'Linux-failsafe'. Selecting NT then brings up the NT bootloader (which has Windows 98 and XP for me). There's no conflicts in that bootloader system.