Re: windows XP NTFS\redhat 7.2

[Derrik Pates]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2001, dman wrote:

> I don't think any bootloader works with NTFS (even NTFS support in
> Linux is experimental, and largely read-only).  You can, though, use a
> separate floppy disk to boot linux and leave the windows MBR alone.

That's not the issue with NTFS OS booting - GRUB can chainload Windows NT
4 and 2000 without a problem, but I'm not 100% sure that it will work with
XP (I've heard it does weird partition stuff, plus the fact that it may
not be happy about having the MBR changed, it may have _yet another_
signature byte that it demands not be changed). With chainloading, you
don't actually have to understand the FS, just start executing the
contents of the first block. (Which is what the "classic" DOS MBR does
anyway.)

I'd back up the MBR with dd, and just try installing GRUB to boot from the
MBR, and see if it can chainload XP. It may not, but at least then you can
boot from a CD or floppy into Linux and restore the original MBR.

Derrik Pates      |   Sysadmin, Douglas School   |    #linuxOS on EFnet
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