[CentOS] Dual-boot with WinXP, CentOS already installed

Robert Heller heller at deepsoft.com
Fri Apr 17 18:43:31 UTC 2009


At Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:20:16 +0200 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> 
> Robert Heller wrote on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:21:01 -0400:
> 
> > If MS-Windows can't install itself on the first drive (as seen by the
> > BIOS eg /dev/hda(1) or /dev/sda(1)), it won't install.
> 
> I think it can install the system to the other drive, but it will want to 
> write the bootloader on the first drive. Which makes sense.
> 
> *MS-Windows*
> > (AFAIK) simply won't install itself anyplace but C: (at least for the
> > core system).
> 
> You confuse that. Windows will name the system partition as C:, but that 
> doesn't mean you can install it only on the first partition. If you have 
> four primary partitions you can install four versions of Windows.

More specificly, MS-Windows *seems* to need to be installed somewhere on
BIOS drive 0x80 (the first drive).  Older BIOSs would call this (whole)
drive 'C:', even if it had multiple partitions (which would end up as
C:, D:, etc. in a MS-Windows world).

When I was trying (way back when in the 1990s) to install NT 4.0 on a
second (physical) SCSI disk, the NT 4.0 installer was calling it C:,
but the installer was failing *after* formatting it.  It was giving
'strange' and 'confusing' error messages.  It appeared that the
installer just did not know how to deal with the hardware situation it
found: a full partition 1st drive, with all partitions of types
MS-Windows did not understand (eg Linux file systems, etc.) and an
available 2nd drive partitioned and formatted for MS-Windows.  I
suspect this is a situation not expected by the writers of the
installer -- part of Microsoft 'arogance' -- eg there is no other
operating system but MS-Windows.  I wouldn't expect MS-Windows XP to be
any different, but don't really know.  After that experience with NT 4.0
I have avoided all contact with MS-Windows (any version).

> 
> Kai
> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller at deepsoft.com       -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
                                                                                                              



More information about the CentOS mailing list