XP and Mandrake Multiboot

[capnqwest]

ok, I thought I had this figured out but I need some help. I'm trying to install a multiboot with XP and Mandrake 9. I have a completely clean 40GB Maxtor. Using Partition Magic 8. I created a 3GB C: for XP and then a 3GB part for Linux. Is it correct that all bootable OS's have to be before the 1024 cylinder boundry and on a primary part?

So then do I create 2 more parts, one for linux apps and the other for windows apps? I'll use Bootmagic as the OS loader.

Is this the best way to accomplish this?

Thanks!!

[Bern]

I'd be giving both XP and Mandrake at least 5gig each, and make sure you have a fat32 partition to share data between the two, mandrake will be able to read ntfs (but not write to it) and no windows version will even recognise a linux formatted partition as a valid filesystem, and dont put the linux partition between the two windows partitions, windows dosn't like that either. The 1024 cylinder boundry is no longer an issue.

[Ash]

i had it all running nicely with a XP partion on NTFS , a fat32 with most of my stuff on and bout 4 gig for mandrake, if you wanted to use LILO as a bootloader (which your not) install xp then linux

on another note, wats the tool to format the MBR with xp, so far everything i have tried has been stopped by the system, do i just have to boot in recovery mode or sumthing ?

[Bahamut Zer0]

Just boot from a Win98 boot disk and issue a fdisk /mbr command
...being a ntfs partition, you may have to delete it first.

As for multiboot, install xp first, then install linux taking extra care not to hose your windows partition(s). Then use a program called 'BootPart' (google it, i havnt got my favourites on me atm) to add linux to your windows boot loader. (boot.ini)
Its an msdos program, and works much like lilo in that it grabs the first 512bytes of boot info from the hard-disc and saves it to a file. Windows' boot loader 'boots' from that file.

Works well, as long as your mbr is nice and clean. Ive had some trouble with my old 4gig being my old win98 drive. as i was installing linux to the superblock of the partition, not the mbr; bootpart wasnt grabbing linux boot info, but the win98 boot info.
Pain in the arse to get rid of windows completley, i assure you.

:)

BootMagic, at least in my experiance, isnt the best boot loader to use. Underneath its simple nature, it is quite complicated and troublesome.