Problems with dual boot and grub

[Nigel Wade]

Marc Schwartz wrote:
> On Sun, 2004-03-21 at 19:56, Kenneth Becker wrote:
> 
>>Marc Schwartz Wrote:
>>
>>
>>>by following the instructions here:
>>>
>>>http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>
>>Mark:
>>You da man. Worked the first time, no problems. So: We use the NT 
>>bootloader to start up Linux! Seems that we need something besides the 
>>basic Grub manual if Grub's going to do the heavy lifting itself.
>>
>>Ken Becker
> 
> 
> 
> Ken,
> 
> I'm happy that it worked for you.  :-)
> 
> Understand that my own use of this particular approach is that I do not
> want to overwrite the MBR. I need to essentially preserve the Windows
> partition in as transparent a process as possible, since I lease my HW
> and need to send it back to Dell when the lease expires.

But your approach is actually modifying the Windows partition, whereas using 
GRUB in the MBR doesn't touch Windows at all. To get Windows to boot Linux 
you first have to copy a GRUB boot sector to the Windows partition, then you 
have to modify boot.ini to add an option to boot Linux. To set the system 
back to its initial state you have to undo both of those actions. If you use 
GRUB in the MBR all you have to do is run fdisk/mbr.


-- 
Nigel Wade