RE: grub and dos, windows, and linux?

[Greg White]

>>>> The system:
>>>> P3 800Mhz
>>>> 1GB RAM
>>>> SCSI hard drives
>>>> Adapatec 2930U2 scsi card
>>>> My plan:
>>>> sda1:
>>>> 100MB FAT32 DOS or even FreeDOS
>>>> sda2:
>>>> rest of the disk space for XP
>>>> sdb1:
>>>> Linux - whole disk
>>
>> I had a few free hours yesterday so I took an old XP VPC I had that had free 
>> disk space at the end of the drive and experimented. I booted the VPC from a 
>> DOS floppy, used fdisk to create a primary partition from some of the free 
>> disk space. I then formatted it, sys'd it, and installed grub. It worked 
>> great. With those results I went and did it in real life and it works great. 
>> Windows and Linux can read/write to the dos partition. Thanks to everyone 
>> for your comments.
>>
>> sda1: Windows XP ntfs
>> sda2: DOS - fat32
>> sdb1: Linux - ext3
>>
>> My grub.conf (installed on sda2):
>>
>> color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
>> # End GRUB global section
>> title DOS
>> rootnoverify (hd0,1)
>> chainloader +1
>> title Win XP
>> rootnoverify (hd0,0)
>> makeactive
>> chainloader +1
>>
>> Thanks,
>
> How did you install FreeDOS and Windows? Did you use hide and unhide
> commands?
>
> What does happen if you delete Windows XP partition contents (not the
> partition itself? Does DOS still boots?

Windows was already installed on the VPC and my real PC.  I always leave blank 
space at the end of the drive.  You never know when you may need it.  

For VPC: I captured the physical floppy drive and put a Windows 98 boot disk in 
the drive.  I then started my VPC and it booted from the floppy disk.  I was at 
a A:\ prompt.  I typed in fdisk, said yes to the two questions, created a 100MB 
primary partition, exited fdisk, rebooted the VPC, it booted from the floppy 
again, I did a format c: /s, it formatted and transferred the system files.  I 
released the physical drive from the VPC, removed the floppy from drive, and 
rebooted the VPC.  Windows came up and saw the new fat32 partition and labeled 
it d:  I then installed grub to the d: and made my menu.lst look like the one I 
just posted and it worked.  No hide, no unhide.  

For real PC: I put a Windows 98 boot disk in the floppy drive.  I then booted 
from the floppy disk.  I was at a A:\ prompt.  I typed in fdisk, said yes to 
the two questions, created a 100MB primary partition, exited fdisk, rebooted 
from the floppy again, I did a format c: /s, it formatted and transferred the 
system files.  I rebooted and Windows came up and saw the new fat32 partition 
and labeled it F:  I changed the drive letter to D: using disk management.  I 
then boot a Linux Live CD and installed grub to the d: and made my menu.lst 
look like the one I just posted and it worked.  No hide, no unhide.  

If I remember my DOS correctly, DOS must be the c: and on a primary partition.  
Since my first first primary partition is ntfs, DOS can't see it so it thinks 
it is the first partition.  As far as DOS is concerned the second primary 
partition is the C: drive.

If I just removed all of the files from my windows partition DOS would still 
boot because the windows partition is NTFS and DOS can't see it.

I don't know what would happen if I removed the windows partition.  My guess is 
nothing.  If I replaced the windows partition with another dos partition I 
would be in trouble.  But so far everything is working great.  I am typing this 
from my linux partition on my real pc booting the way I described.  The best 
part for me was I did not have to reinstall windows.

In the future if I change systems, or replace the hard drive, or need to 
reinstall windows I will probably partition it like this:
sda1: 200MB DOS
sda2: Windows
sbb1: Linux

and have all of the boot files on the C: drive.  But for now I am happy and 
everything works great.

Thanks,

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