Seriously, has anybody dual booted XP with Linux and had problems?Do you use GAG or Grub boot loader

[Ezekiel]

I like your set up better and that's in my plans. In the meantime,
disconnecting SATA drives isn't what PATA drives used to be anyway ;-)

I've had this setup for a year.. maybe longer and it's worked really well.
Removing the cables on the PATA drives was a pain but I always felt that
once they were on that they felt more secure. The SATA drive cables seem
like they're "barely connected" half the time. I wish the physical connector
snapped/clicked into place more firmly.

For my setup I have two removable "bays" and each bay came with one
drawer/caddy. They had additional drawers on sale at the time I bought them
so I bought 4 additional drawers. I had my two original drives plus the four
(4) 250-gig drives from the old RAID array. This gives me 2 bays and 6
different drives I can swap around anytime I want.

Side note - the model I bought was rated well at Newegg which is mainly why
I bought it. There are models that cost 3x, 4x or even more than mine and
those are probably more "durable." But I didn't need something that would
be hot-swapped every day and could take this sort of wear and tear. For the
couple/few times a month that I feel like swapping drives around the cheaper
model I have works great.

 

[RayLopez99]

It's not a matter of trusting or not trusting grub. It's just what works
better for me. I have several old drives from an old RAID array that I don't
use any more. These are 250-gigs each and this sort of arrangement lets me
boot any OS by simply sliding in the correct drive cartridge. I don't have
to worry about grub (or me) making a mistake and it just makes things a lot
easier for me. I did dual-boot at one time with my old setup and I just like
this a lot better.

Understood Ezekiel. I can read between the lines. ;-)

At least you are an honest COLA advocate--your actions speak louder
than words. Rather than depend on Lilo or Grub, you do the smart
thing and simply have essentially two PCs: one running Windows, the
other running Linux. And that's smart, when real money is on the
line. For this girl I'm helping, even if her PC melts into a silicon
blob it's no big loss. But no way in hell would I trust my business
data with Linux. No way. I would, like you, physically swap drives,
or even better just buy two computers: the good one to use Windows
with, an old beat up one to play around with Linux.

This is the equivalent of disconnecting the drives except that you don't
need to mess with any cables. Any drive can be removed and substituted with
any other drive right from the front of the computer case. I actually have
two of these installed... one for the OS and the other for the large data
drive.

Smart, very smart.

RL

 

[RayLopez99]

Alias <[email protected]> writes:

What hell are you talking about?

Windows XP can and DOES see Linux file systems. OBVIOUSLY you need to
install the driver.

There are many reasons why you might want Windows to see Linux file
systems. Erm, its why the driver exists.

Are you retarded or merely trolling?

Hadron--I think Alias is trolling, the more I think about it. He
projects his own status (as a troll) by calling me a troll when I'm
clearly not (at least in this thread).

Or, he could be retarded. Even this guy from 2008 that I referenced
in this thread (here: http://www.matthewjmiller.net/howtos/dual-boot-linux-and-windows/
) admits Windows can read Linux partitions ("Note that there are tools
(e.g., LinuxReader) that allow you to view file systems read-only in
Windows. ")

So maybe he is retarded, poor guy.

RL

 

[Alias]

But no way in hell would I trust my business
data with Linux. No way

Ever hear the phrase, "back up is a computer user's best friend"? The
operating system is irrelevant. If the hard drive goes south, for
example, it matters naught which OS you are using. You have heard of
backing up your data, be it business or personal, or not? I hope your
"business" isn't computers for your clients' sake.

 

[Ezekiel]

Understood Ezekiel. I can read between the lines. ;-)

Don't read too much between the lines. Back when I dual-booted it generally
worked fine for me. Once I had a problem but I had a crazy setup with SCSI,
IDE and external SCSI drives and I had to edit the grub (boot.lst?) file to
do something called "chaining" or something like that to get things working.
I didn't like that nothing would boot but that was only one time with a very
non-standard setup and even that worked once I got it straightened out.

At least you are an honest COLA advocate--your actions speak louder
than words. Rather than depend on Lilo or Grub, you do the smart
thing and simply have essentially two PCs: one running Windows, the
other running Linux. And that's smart, when real money is on the
line. For this girl I'm helping, even if her PC melts into a silicon
blob it's no big loss. But no way in hell would I trust my business
data with Linux. No way. I would, like you, physically swap drives,
or even better just buy two computers: the good one to use Windows
with, an old beat up one to play around with Linux.

By being able to swap drives it effectively gives me two (or more)
computers. Except that they are all connected to the same monitors,
keyboard/mouse, network connector and peripherals. It gives me nearly all
the benefits of having multiple different physical computers without the
drawbacks.

 

[Alias]

Hadron--I think Alias is trolling, the more I think about it. He
projects his own status (as a troll) by calling me a troll when I'm
clearly not (at least in this thread).

Or, he could be retarded. Even this guy from 2008 that I referenced
in this thread (here: http://www.matthewjmiller.net/howtos/dual-boot-linux-and-windows/
) admits Windows can read Linux partitions ("Note that there are tools
(e.g., LinuxReader) that allow you to view file systems read-only in
Windows. ")

So maybe he is retarded, poor guy.

RL

You *can* use Windows and a third party program to see Linux but why
would you want or need to? I was talking about default installs, not
using a program that will enable Windows to see Linux.

Do you still think that Windows is more secure for your "business data"?
LOL!

 

[Norman Peelman]

Very wise.
I've read what you have been saying in this thread, and it's clear that you
are as clueless as I thought.

Don't do it.
Linux is not for you.
You are too thick.
It will all end in tears.

I'm in tears now, i'm laughing so hard!

 

[peterwn]

If you install XP first and then Mint, Mint will create Grub so you can
dual boot. Be sure and leave a partition for Mint when you install XP.
You may want to check out alt.os.linux.mint for support.

If you forget to leave a partition, it is easy enough with open source
tools to shrink the XP FAT or NTFS partition to clear some space.

 

[Alias]

If you forget to leave a partition, it is easy enough with open source
tools to shrink the XP FAT or NTFS partition to clear some space.

True but a little forethought can prevent an additional step.

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

I had a real big problem. I found I had a crap operating system using up
half my disk.

 

[RayLopez99]

Do you still think that Windows is more secure for your "business data"?
LOL!

Hey we're not talking to each other, remember?

Glad I humored you, sour-puss.

RL

 

[Alias]

Hey we're not talking to each other, remember?

You just replied.

Glad I humored you, sour-puss.

RL

Can't answer the question, eh? Everyone act surprised.

 

[bbgruff]

Then get a set of these which is similar to what I have...

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/17-121-177-S02?$S640W$


You can buy just the tray/caddy for about $10/each. This will let you
completely swap out a drive in about 5 seconds and install whatever OS you
want with absolutely ZERO chance of your install damaging the other
partition.

This is imo the best single piece of advice that he's been given on this
thread.

imo it's the perfect solution for him, and for many others who want to try
Linux, or indeed who to use for other purposes. I've been using similar on
my desktops for about 12 years now, and they are a boon.

He won't do it though
You are talking to a guy who struggled to fit a new CPU fan!

 

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

Alias pulled this Usenet face plant:


Pay no attention the the scarecrow behind the curtain.

It's no one else's call on whether you want to try Linux, or not.


You can even write to it, these days.

It's still a bit tricky to get the ownership/permissions right for it.
The permission structure for NTFS is much more flexible than the
limited POSIX standard access control lists of normal ext2/ext3/ext4
filesystems. It resembles the feature sets of NFSv4, and translating
ownership from the simple to the complex environment can be....
fascinating.

NTFS is also still not universally supported in Linux distributions.
RedHat, for example, displays understandable caution and does not
enable it by default in their kernels, at least all the way up through
RHEL 5.5. CentOS publishes kernels in their "centosplus" repository
that supports this, but the ability to accidentally shoot your Windows
environment through the head by editing sytem files from a Linux OS is
a good reason to be cautious about dual access.

 

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

This is *extremely* interesting.  You are a power user, yet you prefer
such a "physical" approach!  Why is that Ezekiel?  Don't trust grub
maybe?

RL

I've used this. I don't trust Windows installers, which can very
easily scrub drives I didn't want them to touch.

 

[Matt Giwer]

Against my better judgment, I decided maybe to dual boot Linux with XP
(XP being installed first). I found a tutorial using Ubuntu for Linux
on how to do this (http://apcmag.com/
how_to_dual_boot_windows_xp_and_linux_xp_installed_first.htm) that
tries to make it look so easy, but the problem is in the MBR which
sometimes gets corrupted. To solve this, I found a Windows freeware
program called GAG http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Boot-Manager-Disk/GAG-d.shtml

Seriously, give it up. You are obviously not bright enough to deal with
linux. It is over your head. Stick with MS. It is the most you are capable of.
Better luck next incarnation.

--
According to Edward R. Murrow a person is no wiser because his words go
around the world than when they only went to the end of the bar. This is a
ringing endorsement of drunken wisdom.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4285
http://www.giwersworld.org/israel/is-seg.phtml a14
Sat Nov 27 10:59:11 EST 2010

 

[RayLopez99]

Can't answer the question, eh? Everyone act surprised.

Lame attempt at trolling noted. You are dismissed, sourpuss.

RL

 

[RayLopez99]

This is imo the best single piece of advice that he's been given on this
thread.

imo it's the perfect solution for him, and for many others who want to try
Linux, or indeed who to use for other purposes.  I've been using similar on
my desktops for about 12 years now, and they are a boon.

He won't do it though
You are talking to a guy who struggled to fit a new CPU fan!

Hey that fan was a real chore--it was a non-standard installation, but
I did manage it. And you know what? I even cleaned out the ball
bearing race with WD-40 spray lubricant, let it dry, and it did not
trash my system! Amazing stuff that oil is.

It's interesting that you, also a power Linux user, advocate
physically swapping HDs to try Linux, instead of relying on software
like Lilo or grub. Actions speak louder than words, and your actions
are screaming that Linux is unsafe when with Windows, unless you
physically sandbox them as you state. Of course you can dual boot,
but when real money is on the line both you and Ezekiel opt for
physical separation. Very telling.

RL

 

[Alias]

Lame attempt at trolling noted. You are dismissed, sourpuss.

RL

Nope, the troll can't answer the question.

 

[Alias]

Hey that fan was a real chore--it was a non-standard installation, but
I did manage it. And you know what? I even cleaned out the ball
bearing race with WD-40 spray lubricant, let it dry, and it did not
trash my system! Amazing stuff that oil is.

It's interesting that you, also a power Linux user, advocate
physically swapping HDs to try Linux, instead of relying on software
like Lilo or grub. Actions speak louder than words, and your actions
are screaming that Linux is unsafe when with Windows, unless you
physically sandbox them as you state. Of course you can dual boot,
but when real money is on the line both you and Ezekiel opt for
physical separation. Very telling.

RL

Can't afford two hard drives, eh? Everyone act surprised.