How to reinstall windows XP without harming Redhat Linux?
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 at
10:04
I have installed Windows XP and Redhat Linux on my computer. My windows XP is corrupt. I am planning to reinstall XP but I dont know how to do it without doing anything. Last time when I formatted the drive where XP was installed, even my redhat linux got deleted. Please give me the complete instructions to reinstall Windows XP without harming Redhat Linux.
Tagged with: last time • Linux • redhat linux • windows xp
Filed under: Redhat
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Installing (or even repairing) Windows reinstalls the Windows loader, and it doesn’t respect non-Windows operating systems. It won’t delete the Red Hat partition, but it removes the boot manager that Red Hat installs (that DOES respect Windows) – either GRUB or Lilo, probably. You can reinstall Windows, then reinstall Red Hat’s loader.
As far as I know XP doesn’t like to be last in line. The NTFS file system has to be at the beginning of the drive. Most everyone I know who has a dual boot had to install XP first, then use partition magic, then installed Linux. Do you really have to install XP? If so, you’ll either have to back up your Linux system and then reformat everything and install XP then Linux, or you’ll need to install XP to another system. If you have another hard drive laying around you could swap them out and quickly install XP and then both would be happy. After you’re done with XP, put your Linux drive back in.
You reinstall windows xp on the partition that you have set up for it in the first place. Then Use SuperGRUB (http://www.supergrubdisk.org/ ) to load back into Red Hat and reinstall/fix the GRUB.
SuperGRUB Doc. Fixing GRUB:
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/wiki/Howto_Fix_Grub