Linux and XP on Separate Drives

D

djca

n00b
Joined
May 4, 2006
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5
I have two SATA drives (1 and 2). Gentoo Linux is installed on the 200GB connected to 1, and the new 250GB drive is on 2.

I'm trying to install XP exclusively on the 2nd drive. However, XP setup won't install if there's no XP-compatible partition on the first drive, as it seems to be writing some startup file on that partition. So it seems NT loader runs from that partition on the first hard drive, which then loads the OS that is stored on the 2nd hard drive.

I don't like this setup, as I would like XP to be exclusively on the second drive. I will use GRUB as the boot loader.

Is what I want to do possible? Thanks for any help.
 
I've always had to install windows first, then install linux, even if they're on seperate drives. Windows wants the main partition and will blow away any boot loaders that are already installed. But, I am no linux guru by any means.
 
There are a couple ways around it.

Can you set the boot priority of the drives in your BIOS? If so, you should be able to set the second sata as the primary boot and XP will e fine with that, once it is installed, you can reverse it and add a line to boot XP from the second harddrive to grub.conf (menu.1st for most non-gentoo grub installs).

You can also unplug the gentoo drive, plug the new one into the first sata port, install XP, then shutdown, plug the drives in normally, add a line to grub.conf to boot XP, and you should be good to go.

As you can see it is much easier to install XP first, then linux, in most cases.

And a side note- if your accidently blow grub away with the nt loader, just boot with your Gentoo cd, mount the boot partition with grub on it, reinstall grub (making sure to run the grub setup) and you will be back in business.
 
Leaving only the XP drive connected during install did the trick for me. Thanks.
 
Someone should write up a sticky on this, it's a frequently asked question on other forums I visit.
 
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