Help with duel booting

[Peppercorn]

I am fixing a friends computer which has XP installed on one partition and Mandrake 9.2 installed on another. The boot manager is controlled by lilo obviously within Mandrake.

 

But what I have to do is reinstall XP because of too many virii and spy progs which has stuffed it completely, and I don't know how to install XP without it taking over the boot manager????

 

Thanks for anyone's help!

[Ixthusdan]

First, remove lilo by restoring the mbr. Use the rescue mode on cd1. Second, install windex to only its partition. If ti asks to do the whole drive, say "no". After windex is done, reinstall lilo with the first cd, rescue mode.

[Peppercorn]

Thanks mate!!

[Peppercorn]

Ah I have a problem!!

 

I did everything that you posted and all seemed to go well until, I reinstalled the lilo boot manager, which also went smoothly. But on boot up I get this error.

Starting Partmon: Checking if partitions have enough diskspace:

Warning, freespace for </> is only <0> (which is inferior to <20000>

 

But that is the only fault and if I log in at the prompt and check everything, it all seems to be OK. All the Linux folders are there, including the home directory. Like I hav'nt installed Windows on the wrong partition or anything stupid like that.

 

Can you HELP please????

[SurfahBoy808]

well, since you're gonna re-install windows, you should do that first. Doing a fresh install will wipe out lilo. After installing windows, you can proceed in installing mandrake. In the bootloader part, place it at the first sector of the root partition.

 

remember in a dual boot setup with windows, you always have to install windows first before anything else. It's a bitch like that.

[bvc]

In the bootloader part, place it at the first sector of the root partition.

how then will Peppercorn boot mandrake?

 

Peppercorn, have you installed win yet?

[Cannonfodder]

Peppercorn, what is the issue? Is XP now working? (as bvc what's his name asked ) If it is just with linux and the disk space message, then you need to get the available space on / and see if you are running out of space..

 

http://www.geocities.com/tipsforlinux/articles/22.html

 

describes the du and df commands. Try the df to get your space on partition /

 

If you are running out, then you need to clean out.. One place to look is..

 

/var/cache/urpmi/rpms and see if you downloaded a lot of rpm files that you have kept...

[Cannonfodder]

well, since you're gonna re-install windows, you should do that first.  Doing a fresh install will wipe out lilo.  After installing windows, you can proceed in installing mandrake.  In the bootloader part, place it at the first sector of the root partition. 

 

remember in a dual boot setup with windows, you always have to install windows first before anything else.  It's a bitch like that.

Just to talk about this..

 

If you have linux installed and install XP, it just cleans the boot loader/mbr out and sets for XP. All you have to do to restore it is boot off of CD1, hit F1, type rescue, and select the restore bootloader option..