Quoting Franz Amador ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > Thanks for the reply. I figured out what happened. > The Debian installer changed the partition number of > my XP partition, I think by changing it from a primary > partition to a logical partition. > > After a lot of Googling, I learned that the NT boot > loader is a program named ntldr in my Win98 C:\ that > is configured by a (hidden) text file (thank God) > named boot.ini also in C:\. I edited boot.ini so that > instead of looking for WinXP in partition 2, it now > looks for it in partition 3, and XP boots fine. > > So, the question now is, why did partitioning move my > XP partition when all I asked it to do was delete my > Mandrake partitions and create Debian partitions in > their stead?
Because you probably asked for the creation of 2 partitions while there was only one before. It is then logical that the partition numbering is then changed. Or, more generally speaking, the number of Linux partition after Debian install was different from the number of Linux partitions before. What was before partition number 2 is now partition number 3. Or 4, or 1, or whatever... As boot.ini relies on the partition numbering scheme for naming partitions, it becomes logical that the NT boot loader is confused. The same would happen with another Linux installation if this another install uses several partitions-->its /etc/fstab could need to be changed if the number of partition changes. In your case, there is no solution rather than manual fixing after the installation. Any solution would involve changing the boot.ini file which is certainly *not* to be done. I don't really understand why you ask your NT boot loader to load another Windows flavour. Why not just leave this to GRUB also? Using two boot loaders simultaneously highly increases the probability of some mess happening..:-) > > Another question: I tried reinstalling Debian, and now > the GRUB installer does not notice Windows and so does > not create a boot-menu option for it. I aborted the > installation because that gave me the willies. *that* is strange as os-prober should still have found the NT partition. This is not really dangerous as you always have the possibility of going to GRUB command line and manually boot any partition you want. However, I may understand you may be scared by this if you're not used to GRUB. I was so the first time I used it...and now I'm a happy GRUB user..:-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
