Now that I’ve got Fedora 8 up and running, it’s time to install Windows XP in the space I left for it at the front of the drive. First though, I’ve reformatted the 3.98Gb left for XP to NTFS using GParted within Fedora.
On booting up with the Windows XP boot disk, I am relieved to not to see the blank screen I did before. After agreeing to the multi-page legal bullshit that passes for a contract, I’m taken to the XP Partitioning tool. It sees the NTFS partition and assigns it the letter C. Interestingly it also sees the other partitions assigning them letters G to L (I have a DVD, CD-RW, and Zip drive also), but says they are of unknown type. I hit enter to install on Partition1.
Next XP setup warns me that the computer contains another operating system, and that to successfully complete installation, setup must mark this partition inactive. So far so good.
Now it offers me 4 options regarding formatting the NTFS partition. I choose the first which is a Format to NTFS (quick) as I read somewhere that when partitioning a disk it is always better to use the partitioning tool for the particular OS you’re installing on it.
This will overwrite my grub boot loader on the MBR but I can replace that by booting in on the Fedora 8 live disk, or even by editing the Windows Boot Manager once XP is installed.
Once XP Setup has finished formatting the C: drive, it reboots and tells me that setup will complete in approximately 39 minutes. I wonder how many reboots there will be in the meantime.
There’s been just one reboot and that was right at the end. I must say this has been pretty painless. Before sorting out the dual-boot with Fedora, I’m going to install XP Service Pack 2 to beef up the security. I may as well before I install any software (i.e. my TAS Books 2). Installing Service Pack 2 has took 25 minutes to complete.
Now to fix the boot-loader so Fedora 8 is booted by default, with an option to boot XP if I want. I reboot from the Fedora 8 live CD. Once in Fedora, Open GParted (Applications > System Tools > GParted). Right-clicking on the NTFS partition (sda1 in my case) and selecting Manage Flags from the pop-up menu does not allow me to change the boot option on sda1.
I double click on the Computer icon on the desktop. In the Computer window there is an item with the label “4.0 GB Volume” which must be the XP partition given its size. Double-clicking on that mounts the partition. GParted still won’t allow me to change the boot flag on it, but tells me the mount point is /media/disk. I can’t do anything even in a terminal window. I think my problem is that I’m in Fedora 8 live disk loaded into RAM and not the Fedora 8 on the HD. I wasn’t given a Rescue Installed System option on boot. I’ll try with Knoppix instead.
Booting from the Knoppix Live CD automatically mounts all the partitions on the hd. Knoppix has QTParted instead of GParted. It allows me to change the “active” label from /dev/hda1 which is the NTFS partition to /dev/hda2 which is the Fedora /boot partition. I first need to make sure that /mnt/hda2 is unmounted with sudo umount /mnt/hda2. After setting /dev/hda2 to be active I reboot the system and get an “error loading operating system” message. Great! I’ll boot from the Fedora 8 Live cd and see if I can fix it. Looks like I’ll have to reinstall the /boot and / partitions leaving the others intact. That way grub will be reinstalled and the Windows XP image will be detected which is what I want.
[to be continued …]