Suse to Suse/XP dualboot?

[Jiokah]

Hiya,

I know dual-booting questions are very common, but mine is a little different. Everyone wants to install linux, but, I already have linux. It's WINDOWS that I want to install.

I'm running a nice Suse 10.1 box, and I've made a pretty little 10 gig partition all ready for windows XP to go on. I've also loaded the partition into GRUB. Now, how do I install Windows XP? I heard if I just install it on a partition, it'll mess with the MBR and Suse won't work anymore, is that true? Also, I installed Windows XP in a virtual machine using that partition as the file system, but it didn't boot with GRUB, only in the VM. So, any ideas?

Thanks!

[devils casper]

its true that Windows will rewrite MBR but you can re-install GRUB easily. after windows installation, boot up from SuSe CD/DVD and select 'Installation'. select 'Upgrade' in next screen. dont select any package. click next next next..... thats it..... GRUB re-installed.





casper

[Jiokah]

Hey,

So I installed Windows on that partition, and of course everytime it booted into Windows from then on. But after about 4 boots, Suse took over again. This is odd because I never touched anything to do with partitions or the MBR. Anyways, I added a line in grub telling it to boot the partition Windows XP was on, it won't boot.

On top of that, I have a serious problem in linux now. I will boot, then after about 5-10 minutes I'll hear an awful sounding "click" which seems to be coming from the hard drive linux is on. Once I got a message saying some log file couldn't be written to right after that click happened. About 5 minutes after the click, everything freezes, no key-combination does anything and I'm forced to hard-boot. Also, I got a perminant black screen when booting a few times after linux took over by itself, this seems to have gone away. Now also while booting, it freezes for almost 5 minutes, last line having to do with my ethernet card and it's MAC address.

So yeah, I screwed up big time, heh. Thanks for the help

[gogalthorp]

Hey,

So I installed Windows on that partition, and of course everytime it booted into Windows from then on. But after about 4 boots, Suse took over again. This is odd because I never touched anything to do with partitions or the MBR. Anyways, I added a line in grub telling it to boot the partition Windows XP was on, it won't boot.

On top of that, I have a serious problem in linux now. I will boot, then after about 5-10 minutes I'll hear an awful sounding "click" which seems to be coming from the hard drive linux is on. Once I got a message saying some log file couldn't be written to right after that click happened. About 5 minutes after the click, everything freezes, no key-combination does anything and I'm forced to hard-boot. Also, I got a perminant black screen when booting a few times after linux took over by itself, this seems to have gone away. Now also while booting, it freezes for almost 5 minutes, last line having to do with my ethernet card and it's MAC address.

So yeah, I screwed up big time, heh. Thanks for the help

You might want to think about running windows in a VM. Check out VMware. the VMware server is a free download and runs windows just fine. Use the 10 gig partition. Just set it as a mount point ( I called mine VM). then when you install VM server tell it to place the VM machines there. I do recommed a lot of memory. It ran ok with 1 gig but there was some disk thrashing. With 2 gig it runs smooth as silk. You can also copy and paste between the OS's and can see each other over the network. Things you can't do with a dual boot. It is the way to go.

[Jiokah]

Thanks for the suggestion gogalthorp, but I already use VMware Workstation. I use it for work as I require Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash, programs which aren't made for Linux. Works like a charm too, but the reason I wanted a dual-boot setup is for the occasional game. Although virtualization is great, it lacks 3D acceleration, something required by video games.

Speaking about your suggestion to use a partition, rather than single files, for VM storage....I'm currently doing a bit of research and finding out how to run a VM under linux, and be able to boot the same OS running in that partition. Has anyone had this idea too?

[ImNeat]

From my experience Windows won't boot through grub unless it's on the first partition of a hard drive. There may be a way around that - but I haven't found it yet.

Have you tried manually reinstalling grub? That might fix a few of your problems.

[gogalthorp]

Thanks for the suggestion gogalthorp, but I already use VMware Workstation. I use it for work as I require Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash, programs which aren't made for Linux. Works like a charm too, but the reason I wanted a dual-boot setup is for the occasional game. Although virtualization is great, it lacks 3D acceleration, something required by video games.

Speaking about your suggestion to use a partition, rather than single files, for VM storage....I'm currently doing a bit of research and finding out how to run a VM under linux, and be able to boot the same OS running in that partition. Has anyone had this idea too?

As far as I know that won't work. I simply have my VM's on a their own partition. VMware defaults on installing the VM's in root. So if you must reintall or move to a new version/distro you can save your VM's. These are not bootable outside of VMware.

[Jiokah]

Hey,

Found a nice article from VMware regarding VMs containing OSes that can also be booted:

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/do...almult_ws.html

Unfortunatly it's only for Workstation, not the free Server software. Although Server can use RAW disks as well, so try it out if you want.

[gogalthorp]

Hey,

Found a nice article from VMware regarding VMs containing OSes that can also be booted:

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/do...almult_ws.html

Unfortunatly it's only for Workstation, not the free Server software. Although Server can use RAW disks as well, so try it out if you want.

Cool, Learn something new everyday.