[plug] dual boot XP dominates

[Shannon Carver]

The bonus you've always got with this setup, if your not worried about
borking your linux installation (which you aren't... Yet!), is that if
you stuff up your boot sector/MBR you can always just put the XP disc
in, go to rescue mode and type fixmbr to correct the problem.  Well,
that'll "correct" the problem by making Windows the bootloader again.

I've never used Mandriva to test it, but I've installed SuSE and Ubuntu
on client machines and my laptop, and they're VERY Windows/Dual boot
happy.  Both, happily install the grub boot loader with the Windows all
setup and working correctly as it was before.  I can't see any reason
why Mandriva wouldn't do this as well.

Shannon

> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-bounces at plug.org.au [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au] On
Behalf
> Of G.Chester
> Sent: Thursday, 23 February 2006 4:08 PM
> To: Plug at Plug. Org. Au
> Subject: [plug] dual boot XP dominates
> 
> Trying to bring my son across from the "dark side" with a magazine
cover
> disc copy of Mandriva to put on his WinXP system. Since he's a
complete
> newbie I thought this would be a good starting distro (no, that's not
> meant
> as flame bait).
> 
> Everything went swimmingly, with all cutting-edge hardware stuff
> recognised,
> etc - and it was so FAST on his new spec PC (mine is steam powered, so
I'm
> used to 1 hour-plus installs).  But, then all that came up after the
> install
> was XP with no boot loader menu in sight (grub was chosen).
> 
> I could give more details about what was done, but in the immediate
sense
> I
> want to know if this a known issue with XP retaining total dominance,
or
> whether I was too clever with choices of partitioning and location of
> /boot
> and stuff and basically stuffed up the install.  I thought this
question
> had
> been answered so time ago and searched the archives, but nothing
exactly
> relevant.  A google-load of page hits talked about editing boot
loaders
> and
> reformatting MBR, but I thought maybe just trying to be less clever
and
> let
> Mandriva sort out partitioning and sectors on his system might be the
> easier
> way to go in the short term.
> 
> What do you'all think.  Trust in the Mandriva developers and try again
or
> get down and dirty with config. files?
> 
> Regards, Gavin.
> 
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