Re: forwarded message from Thierry Laronde

[Andries . Brouwer]

    To give some context : users using Windows 2000 were unable
    to start Windows after installing GNU/Linux (Redhat) ...

    Second, the problem is at least clear here: since the distribution
    asked the bootloader to start (for Windows) a partition numbered
    the way it is numbered under Linux (matching the partition entry)
    it fails because GRUB numbers them in increasing starting number.

Sounds like a GRUB bug, but I would have to see more details.

    There seems to be (user said) a "fixmbr" or so program that reorders
    the entries in the partition table. This means that I'm not the only
    one thinking that Windows declaring the partition in the 4th slot when
    nothing prevents it from putting itself in the first one is at least weird.

>From some old FAQ:

Early MSDOS filled the partition table starting at the end.
In particular, in the case of only one partition, the descriptor was
stored in the fourth primary slot. These days DOS FDISK starts at the
beginning, but other systems, like Unixware, still start at the end.
Also Iomega writes the single partition of a ZIP disk in the last entry
(so that it has to be mounted as /dev/sda4 or /dev/hdc4 or so).

Andries