dual boot - xp behaves strange

[Derek Broughton]

Rares Vernica wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I set up a dual boot environment with Ubuntu and XP. Grub is installed
> on Ubuntu partition and the intention is to have the Ubuntu partition
> bootable. The XP partition just needs to be visible.

Bad plan.  The XP partition _must_ be bootable.  Any Linux root partition
_is_ bootable, whether marked so or not.
> 
> It seems to work. I can boot in Ubuntu just fine. The problem is when I
> boot in XP, it changes the partitions. XP seems to hide the Ubuntu
> partition and make the XP partition bootable.
> 
> I wonder why this happens. I had this setting before and it worked just
> fine.
> 
> One more think, I first installed Ubuntu and then Windows.
 
Always easier to do it the other way...

I'm not sure what exactly your problem is, though.  You're implying that you
can still manage to boot into Ubuntu after XP "changes the partitions". 
The usual problem is simply that an XP install overwrites the boot sector
on the drive.
-- 
derek