HOWTO Reinstall XP Without Destroying Fedora When the XP CD Balks

[stoat]

Originally Posted by yati

i tried hiding linux partitions with gparted, but nothing would happen... after checking the 'hidden' entry in the manage flags dialog, the table is refreshed, but the flags are not set!!....

I regret that. I really wanted to know the answer to that. I also have no idea what (if anything) can be done about that except to say this... If you're using gparted in Fedora, the partitions have to be unmounted first so you can't do it that way. And if your Fedora system is in an LVM physical volume, then it's not surprising that even the GParted LiveCD doesn't do anything to it. The rumors of LVM support in gparted have be around for a long time. I have a very recent version of the GParted LiveCD and it does not appear to be there yet.

Originally Posted by yati

...do you think your original trick may work here --- deleting boot and then recovering with sysrescue?

I don't know. I never tried it when the boot partition was anything other than /dev/sda1. The reason is because it was the only way that I could reproduce this behavior in my XP CD to be able to test anything. So be careful with that.

Originally Posted by yati

you mentioned about removing GRUB from MBR, but how exactly? I got the Super Grub Disk...

That was not tested by me for this problem. Or, if I did try it, then it didn't work or I would have included it as a method. But I have read reports of it working in this situation. I have also read reports where it did not help. But, when done correctly, it's a harmless thing to try. The Super Grub Disk has a menu choice to restore the Windows master boot record. That will install MS-like boot code in the master boot record and overwrite the GRUB stage1 sitting there now. Maybe it will help. Maybe not. It will have the side-effect of breaking GRUB (obviously, which is the objective), and make your virus-infected Windows system boot directly from BIOS if its partition is still the active partition (and it may not be now). If your Fedora boot partition is the active partition (very likely in Fedora 11), then nothing may boot after that. But maybe, just maybe, it will allow the XP CD to boot normally into XP Setup and re-install XP. That, too, will rewrite the boot code once again in the master boot record. But afterwards, it's easy (and heavily documented here) to re-install GRUB in the master boot record and return you to your GRUB boot loader.

The Super Grub Disk is very handy. But to be honest, it is not a beautiful GUI app. It is a menu-driven thing with menu choices that could have been named better IMO. But if you read the help on the disk and the wiki instructions and examples on the website, it soon begins to make some sense and you will see what to do.

[stoat]

Now that I think some more about it, I believe I've tried the "hidden partitions" idea already. It didn't work, and I just forgot about it. But I can't find a post where I documented that. I also tried "disguising" the Linux partitions by using fdisk to change their partition ID numbers. That also did not work, and I did find a post about that from back in 2007. This thing has been going on for a long time. People have tried everything for it. Two or three summers ago, I took this on as a kind of hobby. I searched and searched with Google. I set up a dual boot machine just to test ideas once I was able to duplicate the problem. I wrote about this all the time back them in thread after thread. Finally, I decided that I had learned all that I could and wrote this HOWTO thread. It really does contain all that I know about this after that long summer of effort.

[yati]

hi, I tried deleting GRUB from MBR and filling it up with win boot code (using SGD) but with no luck,... the winxp cd still won't boot.... It's crazy, the OS will boot without any problem, both from GRUB and directly from BIOS, but the very installation disk won't boot....... does win7 have the same problem??

[stoat]

Originally Posted by yati

does win7 have the same problem??

Apparently not. Only the XP CD. And I've heard that it affects only the Home Edition of XP and not the Pro edition.

P.S.: If you are determined not to re-install Fedora, you can try backing up the Fedora partitions with imaging software or even with dd and then delete the partitions while you re-install XP. Then restore the Fedora partitions from the backup partition images.

P.P.S.: Anyway, thanks for returning to report the results of the MBR experiment. It confirms what I said about it not being universally successful.

[yati]

hi,
I tried booting winxp pro, (yes you guessed it), with no luck again... yes, it seems reinstalling both OS's is the only option i have now. BTW, i came by another great boot-disk which has loads of real handy applications thrown in and can also boot a live mini xp box... I dunno about the licensing of the software in it, but i liked the concept. It's called Hiren's Boot Disk: http://www.hirensbootcd.net/

another thing, did anyone try win7? I've heard about people having nightmares after switching to 7 from xp

[yati]

hi,
i reinstalled both the OS's and am running F11 now... thanks to all of you who replied, especially stoat...

[johnnylinux]

No problem installing vista or win7 with a fedora installation that uses a boot partition. Windows XP Pro will cease to install during the boot if you have a /boot partition that is part of a linux installation. You don't need a /boot partition so don't use one if you plan to reinstall windows xp.


Fedora 12 has grub support for ext4 as far as i know so you won't need a boot partition.

I often wonder if people actually read all the posts in a thread.

[troyatlarge]

Great tutorial stoat. When I get past microwaving Microsoft CD's I may just have to try it!