dual boot question

[Andrew Farris]

On Sun, 2009-10-04 at 16:52 +0100, Steve wrote:
> On Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:34:32 +0100, Greg Sander <gregsander at verizon.net>  
> wrote:
> 
> > I want to know if I can do this.  I currently have a dual-boot system  
> > using 2 installations of XP - each on a separate hard drive.  The first  
> > drive has my old installation of XP.  The second drive has my new  
> > installation of XP.  The boot.ini is on the old XP.  I want to install  
> > Ubuntu over the old XP and end up with a dual boot system.  The first  
> > drive would have Ubuntu and the second rive would have my new XP.  My  
> > concern is that the computer looks to the first drive for the boot.ini  
> > (and other windows boot files) to give me my current dual-boot option.
> >
> > Thanks
> 
> I know somebody that’s done this, although it was Vista that was on the  
> first drive, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

I think each windows install gets it's own boot.ini as well, so you
could, in theory anyway, remove whichever one you want, and the process
should continue unhindered. 

I'd still recommend (if you're sure that the old XP install is the one
with the essential boot.ini file) that you make a backup of the file
before wiping that install and putting ubuntu on it. that way, if it
looks like your new XP won't boot, you could try renaming it's boot.ini,
and replacing it with the old XP boot.ini file (you might have to modify
some stuff in it to get it to work... I'm not entirely sure, as I've
never tried this before myself). 

Good luck!


-- 
Andrew
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