On 9/17/06, Norm <norm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
After I looked at things closer I realised that I had come up against a problem I inherited with the drive. The partitions had been converted to dynamic disks and the only option is a full reinstall which for other reasons is not an acceptable solution. Thanks everyone for the suggestions unfortunately I have been Microsofted in this case. Norm -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Hi Norm! XP and Linux - alaways a lot of hassle! The issue you mention appears to be correctable (see "convert back to regular partitions" in link below: # Disk Management Snap-in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309044/ But that is only one of the issues. Bootloader is probably the main issue to deal with. When you install a Linux it most often replaces your Master Boot Record (MBR)(the first sector (512 bytes) of the disk). Fedora will do so with GRUB stage one. If you are otherwise set up to do so you can chainload XP, but often security applications and other machine management software may see fit to "fix" the MBR back to an XP MBR. Probably a good solution is to chain load Linux through the XP boot loader. Another option is to use an external drive and use BIOS to prefer it when inserted. Or a separate internal drive. Currently I have Solaris on a separate drive (Solaris is not particularly GRUB friendly and also has a tendency to want it's own MBR - like XP). The separate drive is a SCSI drive and so BIOS is set to prefer the IDE drive which contains Dapper, Suse(w/Xen!), FC5, and the GRUB boot screen also contains one item (with the recovery and memtest and floppy boot options there are currently 10 items!) which selects Solaris on the separate disk. And it all works (well, boot from flash is still a problem but...). Good Booting! Tod
