OK, I took the plunge and installed Linux on an unused partition on my hard drive. Installation went easily enough, as did configuration. But now I have a problem. See, I wanted to set up Linux to only boot when I had the Linux floppy in my disk drive, any other time I wanted it to boot into regular old WinXP. I thought I had set it up correctly but now it only goes into the Lilo bootloader whenever the machine turns on. It doesn’t even give me an option to manually pick windows, just Linux, Linux-nonfb, failsafe, and floppy.
I went into the Mandrake Control Center 9.1 and manually added my windows partion as the default boot device but it still doesn’t give me that option. Help, I know my Windows is still there but I can’t get to it. Is there any way to remove Lilo and have it set up to boot into WinXP like before with the Linux option only if I have the Floppy in the disk drive? If not how can I remove Linux and fix the Master Boot Record? Any help is appreciated.
Not much help from me, but from what I’ve heard, it’s a real PITA to do a dual boot using LILO and XP. There’s a thread around here which describes how to do it, IIRC.
First, you can try and change your LILO configuration using drakboot (from a terminal, type “drakboot” or, using the menu, go to Configuration > Other > Control Center (I think that is where it is. Anyway, it is Mandrake Control Center)
You should be able to add your windows partition as a bootable option. Unless the MBR has been overwritten and windows won’t boot. If that has happened, and you have a boot floppy, you should be able to put that in when you reboot and the computer will boot Mandrake. Without the floppy, the computer should boot Windows.
After you remove LILO. (Should be /sbin/lilo -u)
and fix your MBR (master boot record). Below is a link I found outlining the advice given to someone else.
It’s been a while since I dual-booted, but when I did, at the point that you configure LILO, make sure windows is an option and it is marked as default.
Even if Windows is not bootable, all of your files are still there and accessible via /mnt/windows/… It might be a good idea to back up anything you care about (mail yourself a tarball, write it to CD or just copy it to your Linux partition to be retrieved later.
I’ll stop rambling now. Good choice with Mandrake. It’s my favorite distro.
Make sure your boot disk actually boots first , there was some issues with mandrake 9.1 that were covered by upgrades.
Next insert CD1 , the bootable one , into your drive , let it boot and hit F1 i believe when the option comes up. Type rescue at the prompt and it will go through first and second stage install, till you come to a text menu.
One option will be to restore windows boot loader, that should solve your problem , with a bootable CD , you should be able to boot into drake with the floppy.
Alright peeps, thanks for all the suggestions. I just used the Recovery Console on the WinXP disk, typed fixmbr and fixboot C:, from leenmi’s link, and am able to boot directly into windows with no prob and can see and access both of my windows partitions. Before I did that I created a linux boot disk using the Mandrake Control Center and am going to see if that works tomorrow after work. To tired to fix anything if I screw it up now. Thanks for all the help.