Dual Boot and my screwy BIOS - not an LQ per se

I recently installed Debian onto an older laptop I have and decided to make it dual boot with XP. I'd love for it to be able to boot to either OS successfully without having to mess with the BIOS configurations every time. I am beginning to realize this may be a pipe dream with this particular computer. Here's the issue:

In PhoenixBIOS under the advanced tab I see:
I/O Device Configuration
PnP O/S [Yes] or [No] (this seems to make no difference whichever I choose)
Large Disk Access Mode: [DOS] or [OTHER] (this is the one that I must change every time or else. WinXP will not boot if it's set as "other" and Debian will not boot if it's set as "DOS"

Is it impossible to boot to either/or without having to manually adjust every time?

Thanks in advance for any responses

its possible but you have to create /boot partition in first 1024 cylinders.
boot up Debian and open Konsole/Terminal. execute this

Code:

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su
fdisk -l

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post output here.

after typing fdisk -1 it says "fdisk: invalid option -- 1" but if you're wanting my partition table it looks like this:

/dev/hda1 1 - 1098 HPFS/NTFS (Windows)
/dev/hda2 * Linux (root)
/dev/hda3 Extended
/dev/hda5 Linus swap
/dev/hda6 Linux (home)

only remembered the first start and end points as I don't have it in front of me right now.

I have GRUB loaded on /dev/hda2 and boot to there so if I ever take linux back off it I just have to move the boot flag back and not worry about the uninstall messing up my MBR for windows. That and with other computers I've tried dual boot on having GRUB in the MBR screwed up windows boot giving a "mup.sys" death

It's not fdisk -1, it's fdisk -l ("l" for "list", not the number one)

Well don't I feel silly. Nevertheless I believe I've given the correct info. I just went about getting it in a less efficient way (i.e. fdisk /dev/hda and then typing p)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blevo

/dev/hda1 1 - 1098 HPFS/NTFS (Windows)

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Windows Partition has crossed 1024 Partition Limit. setup Windows Boot Loader for dual booting. check this post.

What would the solution be if I resized the windows partition under 1024? Would I still have to add linux to the windows boot loader and have the first partition be the one I boot to or could I keep it as it is? The reason I ask is because I'd rather not have two boot loading screens (windows and GRUB) before I run linux if I don't have to.
So my question is if the windows partition is under 1024 then my "Large Disk Access Mode" setting can be Other and windows will still boot and work fine?

Alright, perhaps I should cut my losses and give up on this Gateway Laptop. It's not a fan of linux. Now I can't even boot up Debian. During the init stage it will just decide to completely turn off, and not always at the same part during init either. It seems to vary. It's done it a few times intermittantly before but now it's consistent. I'm not sure if it's because the laptop is hot or what. Whatever it is if it decides to run for me I'll let you know how things turn out.