Dual Boot Linpus and XP - Idiots' Guide

Im guessing here that the differences between linpus booting or not depends on if the partitons are marked active properly or not

 

But if I've followed the guide, and someone else has followed the guide, and we end up with different outcomes, how is that possible? Anyway, it works now!

Matt

 

havn aclue to be honest, it seems to vary depending on device for some reason

 

lol I'll have to start telling my parents that "computers sometimes just do things!" instead of "well, you must have pressed something!"

Matt

 

must be the first influences of SkyNets self awareness HAHA

 

I suspected at the time that it was Windows overwriting the MBR in some manner, thereby zapping the grub bootloader. Hence the requirement to reinstall Grub. But maybe DJ_Steve knows the REAL answer! [Oh, OK, just read the replies before this, maybe he doesn't either!]

Certainly it must be Windows getting things wrong regarding the partitioning numbering; after all, if you create a SECOND partition (ie number 1, counting from zero) why does Windows suddenly think it is number 2 (ie the THIRD partition).

If I knew more about Linux I could have zapped the swap partition before trying to install XP but then I didn't know how to tell Linux/Linpus that I've created a new swap partition.

The bit I loved most was using VI to edit the boot.ini on the Windows partition. Boy was that fun!

 

windows is not exactly renowded for being simple ive hadit (and no im not kidding) wipe out over 300gb worth ofdata on a second hd during reinstall without even asking if i wanted to format thedrive

 

Hi,

I followed the guide as best I could and got Windows installed fine. However I can't mount the Linpus partition in order to change/reinstall grub to allow for a proper dual boot, nor can I actually boot into Linpus itself (Just sits at the curser blinking stage). As in step 15 I can boot onto the usb stick, opened the terminal, made the sda1 directory, but when try the mount command I get the following:

Code:

root@debian:~# mount /dev/sda1 sda1
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1,
       missing codepage or helper program, or otger error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

Helpfully I can't seem to type the | key on there (just get a <) but typing just dmesg brings up the last few lines in the window the last 2 lines of which are (or the ones that appear to have occurred at the time I did the command):

Code:

EXT2-fs error (device sda1): ext2_check_descriptors: Inode bitmap for group 384 not in group ( block 2147483647)!
EXT2-fs: group descriptors corrupted

I can still boot into windows fine by setting the boot flag on sda2 (the windows partition), but it would be nice to have the Linpus one as well. Any ideas on what I can do to fix this? Other than that the guide worked perfectly.

Thanks

 

Hello, I've been lurking round here for a while and finally got round to setting up a dual but on my Linpus AAO. I've gone for using Windows7 (RC) rather than XP but followed the rest of the idiots guide as to how to do it.

After shrinking the Linpus partition,the first problem I hit was the name of the new partition set up using Gparted. It was sda3 but was showing as the second partition on the disk (others have mentioned a similar issue). Windows installed fine (I did this from another USB stick rather than DVD and it only took about 10 minutes) and would boot but after changing the grub to the Fedora version I could get into Linpus but Windows would refuse to boot. I tinkered about with the boot.ini as suggested but it still didn't work. I then tried moving the linux swap partition to before the Windows partition, leaving the numbering as it was, but this didn't work either. In fact I ended up with two linux swap partitions (now sda2 and sda 4 with the partitions on the disk being <linpus sda1><copy of swap sda4><windows sda3><swap sda2>.

As I'd only just installed Windows and hadn't used it yet I figures the easiest option was to delete the new partitions and start from fresh. This time I used Gparted to move the linux swap partition so was showing as physically after the Linpus partition and then created the NTFS partition in the free space left. It was now numbered sda3 and was in third place (if you see what I mean). I reinstalled Windows7, recreated grub and (HEY PRESTO!!) it worked.

Incidentally Windows7 seems to have installed the drivers for wifi /video / sound etc straight 'out of the box' which is fab in itself.

Thanks to all who've posted their experiences in this thread and especially to dj_steve and Aresby for the guide.

 

Aha, scrub the earlier message sorry, managed to fix the problem. In Gparted I had to right click on the sda1 partition and choose 'Check'. After it had checked it for errors (and presumably fixed what it found) I was able to mount the drive properly and reinstall grub to get it to boot. No idea what caused the original problem though still.

Thanks for the guide again!

 

also forcing a mount may work (mount -t ext2 /dev/sda1

 

I really want to install Windows 7 onto my AAO but have yet to find the time to do it (and a full backup before I even attempt it!). But your info that drivers get installed 'out of the box' is very encouraging.

I'm glad (as I'm sure DJ_Steve is) that you found the guide useful.

 

Thanks to the guide I now have XP and Linpus dual booting. Last night in a moment of inspiration I felt like installing Windows 7, so I downloaded the RC DVD and followed instructions to create a bootable USB stick with the Windows 7 DVD installer on it. I got cold feet though at the point at which I was going to install it because:-
- I had had to use my only 4gb USB stick to put the Windows 7 DVD onto, which meant that I no longer had gparted live on USB
- it was late....

I'm quite happy to trash the XP installation. What I was thinking of doing was simply following the Windows 7 installation routine and selecting the (currently XP) drive to be overwritten.

My question is would Windows 7 be sensible and recognise that it is installed alongside Linpus and create a boot manager that deals with that? Or would it simply assume it was the only OS, so I'd have to rebuild grub?

TIA for any experience anyone has of this!

Matt

 

Windows 7 will overwrite grub id guess.. never actuall tested that. But once 7 is installed rewrite gparted to your usb pen and reinstall grub

 

THanks - that's what I thought I might have to do. I also presume that Windows 7 will prime the mbr to boot from the right partition. Sounds like I should give it a go tonight.

Matt

 

Update - all went smoothly, and as predicted.

Installed cleanly onto the partion occupied by XP. Helpfully the Win7 installation didn't delete the XP installation, it just moved it to a folder called windows.old; on the one hand this takes up disc space, but on the other hand you can rest assured that if you did take the plunge and install Win 7 you wouldn't lose any data.

Windows 7 had no problem rebooting the machine several times, so no issues with it understanding which partition it was installed on. I tried to find a way to set the Linpus partition as the boot partition under the Windows disk management tools, but it didn't appear that that could be achieved.

So I recreated the gparted live usb stick, booted that and set the Linpus partition as boot. Unsurprisingly I then got "missing operating system" when I rebooted.

So back into the gparted live usb stick, recreated grub following the instructions on the jargongeneration.com guide (NB previously I had installed the fedora core "better" grub, and the instructions worked the same as they had done for the acer grub) and on the next reboot grub was back in working order and I could successfully choose between XP and Linpus. All working fine.

I'll have a play around with Windows 7 tonight. First impressions are OK - wireless worked out of the box, I haven't tested sound, webcam, graphics options etc

Matt

 

Good to hear it worked....windows can change active partitions but you have to use the command line diskpart command to do it

 

further to tgis I doubt it would be too hard to get xp workin aswell

 

I'm watching your updates with interest! Good work so far.

 

Sound working fine without an extra drivers needed on my Win7 / Linpus dual booter.

I just need to summon up the courage to open it up and stick in the extra RAM and a bigger hard disk now.