need help booting into red hat linux from NTFS partition

[kheinz]

Hi

I'm sorry to say I'm a windows user and I'm finding it hard to switch to linux... but that's besides the point.

I have windows XP already installed on my PC on an NTFS partition. I installed red hat linux 7.1 on a different partition, but apparetnly redhat 7.1's lilo refuses to allow boot any operating system on an NTFS, and windows booter refuses to boot linux because windows is installed on an NTFS partition.

So my question is this: is there anyway to go around this problem that does not involve formatting my windows partition to fat 32?

If not, does a newer version of linux cooperate with NTFS more willingly?

Thanks
Kheinz

[jmatt]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...=Google+Search

[kheinz]

sorry that doesn't help...

[BipolarBill]

Most dual-booters choose to install either a FAT16 or FAT32 boot partition for just these issues. You can do this after the fact:

Use Partition Magic or similar to create a small primary partition ahead of WinXP. Before you do, cut these files from your boot partition to a floppy.

BOOT.INI
BOOTSEC.DOS
NTDETECT
NTLDR

Change the properties of BOOT.INI to remove the READ ONLY and HIDDEN attributes while they're on the floppy.:

After you've copied those files to your new boot partition, boot up with a Win98 Startup disk:

http://www.bootdisk.com/original.htm

Run FDISK /MBR.

This makes the new partition bootable. Now EDIT BOOT.INI on the C: drive. Change the paths so that they now say:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP " /fastdetect

That should do it. If WinXP doesn't boot, make sure that those files were removed from the old boot partition and then run a repair of XP by booting from the CD:

http://www.gateway.com/support/produ...50959411.shtml