dual boot Xp and Ubuntu Studio

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Wed, 2010-12-29 at 13:04 -0500, Douglas Pollard wrote:
> Hi Folks,  I have xp on my first drive and Ubuntu Studio on the second. 
> I have a partially installed Kodak easy share program that crashes xp 
> and I have been told that I will have to reinstall xp. I can't remove 
> the Kodak program. As I remember  Xp will  wipe out Ubuntu if I 
> reinstall it. Is this correct ??   Thanks Doug

No this is bullshit, assumed that XP offers you to be installed on any
first partition.

It might be, that the XP boot loader will overwrite GRUB in the MBR. If
so, copy the MBR first and restore it, by using a Linux live CD, after
Windows is installed. Then run 'update-grub' by your Ubuntu Studio, that
should include a chain loader entry for XP, to your GRUB menu.

To copy the MBR run

sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=MBR bs=512 count=1

Instead of sda enter the wanted HDD.

to restore the MBR run

sudo dd of=/dev/sda if=MBR bs=512

to be safe you might wish to copy your Ubuntu Studio before you
reinstall XP.

>From a Live CD or another Linux install run

sudo -i
cd to_the_root_directory_of_your_Ubuntu_Studio
tar czf /path_were_the-backup_should_be_stored/name_of_the_backup.tar.gz
*

Note: Shell globbing is tricky, the * will cause, that hidden files only
will be copied inside folders of the root directory, but not for the
root directory itself.

Hth,

Ralf