dual boot question

[Leonard Chatagnier]

--- On Sun, 10/4/09, Karl F. Larsen <klarsen1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Karl F. Larsen <klarsen1 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: dual boot question
> To: "Ubuntu user technical support, not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Date: Sunday, October 4, 2009, 12:00 PM
> Andrew Farris wrote:
> > 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, I have seen every version of
> Ubuntu use grub which 
> will pick up the saved XP and boot that if you want to. Do
> not 
> worry about the window boot.
> 
My experience is similar to Karl's but I wouldn't go so far to say it can't happen.  My experience does inclue a dual drive Ubuntu/windose system and have never had to modify menu.list as "sudo update-grub" has always fixed any problems.  I am just about to install Karmac on an empty partition and will soom see if grub2 is as forgiving just as soon as I read the links that NoOp gave in an earlier post concerning grub2.  The bugs have been posted for grub2.
Leonard Chatagnier
lenc5570 at sbcglobal.net