Re: grub and dos, windows, and linux?

[Felix Miata]

On 2008/10/21 20:43 (GMT+0200) adrian15 composed:

> En/na Felix Miata ha escrit:

>> On 2008/10/21 20:14 (GMT+0200) adrian15 composed:

>>> I would make a:
>>> sda1 EXT3 partition /boot
>>> sda2 FAT12

>> FAT12 (type 0x01) only works if you want your DOS partition to be very small,
>> ~16M or less. FAT16 (0x04) works from 16M to 32M. FAT16B (0x06) goes from 32M
>> to 2G. FAT32 is good for more than 2G, and less.

> I just thought that DOS was only compatible with FAT12 but now I 
> remember it I think that you can have DOS on FAT16. However you cannot 
> have DOS on FAT32. Isn't it?

Which DOS? It came in many versions, and still comes in DOSEMU, DOSBOX &
FreeDOS flavors. FreeDOS supports FAT32 since way too far back for me to
remember. FAT32 was introduced in M$ DOS 7.1, aka Win95OSR2 (or something
like that, 12 years ago).

>>> sda3 WINXP

>> If you do that, you'll almost certainly never be able to reinstall Windoz
>> without wiping out Linux first. All the WinXP installation CDs I've used
>> apparently check for the presence of Grub on the first primary, and black
>> screen instead of proceeding when I boot them.

> Even if GRUB is in a ext3 partition ?

Partition type is irrelevant. What the XP installer finds there is what
counts. Make sda1 EXT2, but don't install Grub there, and doz will install to
sda2 or sda3. Try that after installing Grub there, and you get...

> Black screen ?

Black with text is the first thing you see booting an XP install CD, first
choosing whether or not to boot the CD instead of the HD, then announcing
system examination. After that one line message, normally the screen will go
blue and installation will proceed. With Grub on sda1, instead of the switch
to blue, you get disappearance of the white text, and left with nothing but
black.

> Hummm...
> I have not so much experience on installing Windows XP so you might be 
> right.

Happened lots of times over several years before I figured out what was
happening by halting Linux installation after baby steps to see at what point
XP CD would no longer work. When I use IBM Boot Manager as primary boot
loader and limit Grub to logical partitions, XP has no problem installing to
sda2 or sda3.
-- 
"Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and
slow to become angry."          James 1:19 NIV

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/