[ltp] 600E - Upgrading to Win 2000

[James Holden]

For things like this I'd recommend getting and learning how to use the GRUB
bootloader. The Win2k install will trash your boot sector (how rude).
Grub can be run from a floppy and can be used to boot arbitrary
partitions/kernels etc.... You can then instruct grub to install itself as your
main bootloader. The procedure would be something like this....

* Create and test a GRUB disk.
* Print out relevant parts of the docs. They won't be any good if you can't boot
your machine to look at them when you're half way though the process! Make sure
you're familiar with the way your disk is partitioned, ie Linux on /dev/hda5 for
example.
* Install Win2k, prepare to lose LILO or whatever you're using.
* Use the Grub floppy to boot your linux install.
* Save Win2k's boot sector to a small file with something like this: dd
if=/dev/hda of=2kboot.dat bs=512 count=1
* Copy this file somewhere into your Linux partition. Grub doesn't understand NTFS.
* Use your GRUB boot disk to re-install itself to your hard disk.
* Manually boot Linux, eg:
           root hd(0,4)
           kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5
           boot
* Set up a config file in /boot/grub to allow you to boot Win2k and RedHat.


It sounds complicated, but all you're doing is replacing the Win2k bootloader
with one which is aware of Linux (or most other OS's for that matter).
Grub is great because you can boot partitions off your hard disk using a floppy.
You can also create a boot script for the menu entries to do things like hide
partitions or re-map them. You can get 2 different versions of DOS running on 1
PC by making GRUB shuffle them around so DOS doesn't get confused, for instance.



James



Quoting Chris Dailey <badger@eskimo.com>:

> Thinking of upgrading my Windoze 98 to Win 2000 pro. HAs anybody done this
> and have you run into any problems? My hardrive is partitioned into two
> 4.7 gig sections. One having 98 the other RedHat 7.2
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
James Holden, Leeds, United Kingdom
james-at-microcosmos.co.uk
In a world without boundaries, who needs Gates?

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