Re: Will upgrade to XP kill lilo and mandrake??

[John Coffman]

At 11:42 AM 04/02/2002 +1000, you wrote:
>On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 11:18:38AM +1000, Dan Washusen wrote:
>> On Tue, 2002-04-02 at 11:01, Wylie Edwards wrote:
>> > If I upgrade to xp and it kills the
>> > boot loader, how do I get it back?
>> 
>> I think XP would kill lilo.  But it's really easy to get it back...
>>
>> [6 step process omitted]
>
>I find it really amusing/disturbing that such a common problem
>has such a complicated solution.
>
>IMHO, the RH/Mandrake/whatever install CD should have an option
>(alongside "Install", "Upgrade" and friends?) to "reactivate"
>a linux distro.
>
>The main problem with this is, if there are multiple distro's
>installed, you're not sure which grub or lilo configuration
>to use.  So, it can't be made completely "luser-proof" :(
>But, most lusers would only have 1 distro anyway...
>
>Perhaps the best solution is to make grub/lilo add a timestamp
>inside their config files when the bootloader is INSTALLED,
>and the auto-reinstaller looks for the config file with the

"looks" where?  A lot depends upon how the partitions are mounted.


>newest timestamp?  (Obviously, this is different from the mtime...
>we want the file that was USED for an installation last, not UPDATED
>last)

I think someone who is running two or more operating systems is more
sophistocated than the casual user.

Installing Windows will defeat Linux; installing Linux will defeat Windows.
 Anyone launching into a multi-boot system setup had better do their
homework first.  It is no particular mystery -- once you have been through
the process.

I guess for all of us, the first dual-boot experience was quite a learning
experience.   :-)

--John

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