Linux Windows Bootloader - Load Linux

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el33t

Explorer
yes this is just for knowledge and majority of us will still prefer to use GRUB at the end to dual boot Windows Linux ;)

Suppose,
You have Windows 2K/XP/2k3 installed on "C:"
Now you install Linux on 2nd primary partition(hda2) of Primary Master hard disk => hda

So in linux C: => hda1

You install GRUB on MBR.
First edit the "grub.conf" or in most cases the "menu.lst" file located /boot/grub/ folder and set the timeout to "0" and default OS to Linux

Now use this command to backup MBR
dd if=/dev/hda of=/linux.mbr bs=512 count=1
Now you have to somehow copy that file /linux.mbr to "C:\"
If C: is fat32 then you may mount hda1 in Linux and then copy it to hda1
mkdir /mnt/hda1
mount /devhda1 /mnt/hda1
mv /linux.mbr /mnt/hda1/
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If it is NTFS then use a floppy disk.
fdformat /dev/fd0H1440
mkfs -t msdos /dev/fd0H1440
mount /dev/floppy /mnt/floppy
cp /linux.mbr /mnt/floppy
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Now boot with Windows CD and enter Recovery console and use commands
fixmbr
fixboot
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Now when u reboot you will directly boot into Windows since you have removed GRUB with above commands.

Now in Windows edit the boot.ini should look like this
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows 2000" / fastdetect
C:\linux.mbr= "Linux"
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Now reboot and you will get dual booting Windows Linux using the Windows bootloader :)
Select the Linux option and voila ! :)

But at the end this is too much work if there exsist more than one linux distro damn so grub is prefered.

Regards.
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KingKrool said:
Shudn't u list the src (PCQuest)? Of course u cud have come up with it urself.... naah.
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hi kk, :)
I thought you knew me from the techarena days. I always post "SOURCE" when i directly copy and share information from other websites. I will "NOT" post source if something i "ThinK" and do "MyselF".

And to "BelievE" or "NoT" is upto you :)

Regards.
 
Ok, but where did u learn this? When I oce posted it at TA, i did mention that it was a PCQ thingy. I don't suggest that u have plagiarized, as you method is a bit different (swicthing off grub etc)but where did u stumble across this?
 
Heh ntn to do with pcq... this is a really old and time tested method for using the win2k+ boot loader for linux. I've been using this method for probably the last 5 years since the days of redhat 6.1 :D
 
Well, I don't doubt that Vinod Unny (that is his name rite?) didn't come up with this himself. And yeah, that PCQ article incidentally was published August 2000 which wud make it 5 years old.....

Just forget I said anything... no offence meant to anyone.
 
KingKrool said:
Ok, but where did u learn this? but where did u stumble across this?
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If my weak memory remembers correctly i had already answered your question before:
http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=15092

I have spent lot of time in the past on digging thru hell lot machine code and breaking challenging protections(if u have seen my tutorials on arteam forum) where you have to find the way to break it by analysing and "Inquiring Mind"

I was just thinking on using the Windows bootloader to point to linux bootloader and i had recently used these "dd if= of=" command and there where it struck me. If you know basic details about MBR, bootloaders then is that difficult ?

As chaos has already said that its an old method but just bcoz of that it doesn't mean that i can't be source of any tweaking bcoz i have done alot of that in my entire computing life so i don't have to always learn from any source :)

Regards.
 
LOL I forgot we're in 2005 :D. Make it 7 then... I'm talking of 1998-99... my sophomore year when i started fiddling with all this :)
 
KingKrool said:
Actually I was referring to just this one trick, no Win32 API here.
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You just have to think that is all the inquiring mind ! You fail to understand what i had said there on that topic on techarena. You read carefully i am not saying Win32API but the "Inquiring Mind".

There are so many tricks and tweaks so will u ask each and every author that howw the hell did u think of the trick ? No it is u have to use your own brain to come with ideas than asking

I know my capabilities so i don't have to argue with u anymore answering your questions :)

Regards.
 
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