Dual Booting Red Hat 9 with Windows XP

Question

My DELL Dimension XPS R400 has Windows XP HOME already installed on one Hard Drive so i set that Hard Drive to slave mode put it in the computer and then put in a blank Hard Drive as master. I put linux on the master one and then during the installation of linux it says it found DOS(win XP)(i know it is normal for it to only say DOS) on the secondary or slave or somthing hard drive and asks if i want to dual boot with it! So i say yes and select the GRUB boot loader! Ok, so about a hour or two later the installations done i boot up for the first time and GRUB comes up i select Linux Red Hat 9 and all boots just the way it should! But if i select where it says DOS(windows XP HOME) than it wont boot? Any Help? PLEASE? it's my server but also just wanting it dual booting with windows just incase i need it for something?

HALO PRO · Answer

Oh but the Windows XP HOME Hard Drive will boot just fine if i set it to master and put it in alone! And when their both hooked up(linux to master; windows to slave) than only linux boots from the GRUB BOOT loader!?

sRaL · Answer

back in school, we had to install the LINUX as second, having windows to be its master. and once you boot up, you'll have options on which to OS to select. the default would be windows.

HALO PRO · Answer

Ok so if i set the windows as master and the linux as slave windows should automatically detect it and give me a boot option for it?

sRaL · Answer

yes as long as you installed the Red Hat correctly. usually, the windows is installed first before thr red hat (linux)

ToddR · Answer

The problem you are having is that Windows is trying to boot to the Master hard drive because it doesn't know you moved it.

You could modify the boot.ini file

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Note the line that starts with "multi", this article http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;102873, explains it in detail.

you should just need to change the "rdisk(0)" to "rdisk(1)" to tell your Windows system to boot from its new location. Change both the "multi" and the "default" lines.

Use your XP CD to get into the "Recovery Console" to edit the boot.ini file.

Then when GRUB hands off the boot process, you should no longer get a message about files not being found and Windows should boot fine.

There may be some other slight effects from moving the drive but nothing significant.

Linux General

Dual Booting Red Hat 9 with Windows XP

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