Dual Booting Linux and Windows

A common way to start using Linux is to have a working Windows XP installation taking up a full drive and wanting to give just a little room to Linux. This is how I started long ago and it’s not too unlike how I do it now.

There are some hitches to installing Linux and Windows together, some of which involve the MBR (Master Boot Record). Those who have attempted to dual-boot systems will surely have one or two stories of unexpectedly-overwritten MBRs.

Here is an article about using NTLDR (the Windows software for the MBR) and keeping Windows intact, while installing Linux into a second hard drive.

The computer in question was a standard white-box PC with Windows XP installed on its one hard drive. One option was to shrink the exiting Windows partition with NTFSresize and install Linux in the resulting free space. However, this was too intrusive. I did not have a backup of the data on the Windows machine, and didn’t want to take the time to make one, so I was loath to do anything that could wipe it out.

Note: The instructions given in this article could just as easily be applied to installing Linux into a partition on the primary drive. The only change required would be to install GRUB or LILO into hda2 (or whatever number) instead of hdb.