WinXp Mandrake Dual Boot

Ok, here's my problem. I had installed 98 on a small partition and then installed Xp on the larger partition planning to go back and install linux over top of 98. This worked sorta as planned, however when I installed linux I became unable to boot Xp, this being a very bad thing since I'd already been using Xp for a few days and had saved games/ media files/ etc. So I installed Winxp again over top of linux. It now boots into the xp install on drive G: (the new one). How can I get it to boot into the install on drive c: that has all my programs and after that how do i go about replacing the new install with linux in a way that I can still boot Xp.

 

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From what I can tell now is that you have two partitions with WinXP on them, correct?

If you format the new partition with the new install of winXP on it, and install Linux I don't see why it wouldn't install a boot manager for you? Maybe what you want to try is format that NEW Win XP partition and see if the OLD one will boot then. You might have to reset your master boot record by doing a "fdisk /mbr" if it doesn't boot the first time.

If that old Win XP partition does boot you can probably just install linux on the other partition and it will automatically install a boot manager for you.

 

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Windows hates being on anything but the first partition. There is a way to have it boot as non first though, but it involves manual editing of the lilo.conf file in mandrake. If your interested I could look up the appropriate lilo settings.

Edit: Mandrakes automatic settings work fine when windows is on the 1rst partition btw.

 

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Okay, thanks for the replies, couple quick questions. I want to make a bootable cd so i can go and reformat my computer and start from scratch, setting up Winxp on the first partition so it works without manually editing lilo(or grub, not sure which one I'm gonna use yet). Where should I look to find about making said cd. A point to some files or tutorials would be really cool. I've been googling but all the information I'm finding seems a little more complex than a simple bootable dos cd with fdisk, which is basically all I want.

 

hey I got the same set up it took 3 or 4 formats but it works. The way I have it is two sepreate partions first one linux and second win xp I installed linux first then used the program that came with linux to make two partions forget whats is called installed xp on second partion, but had to make a linux boot disk to boot linux when I want to use it.

dont know if that helped any

 

The mandrake install CD has a super easy formatting utility in it. Just go to install, but cancel after the formatting is done.

 

Thanks guys, I figured it all out and got it working. And may I just say EBCD kicks ass. I found it at bootdisk.com. It does everything.