Bug#49223: boot-floppy instructions: Special HD Partitioning for Win2000

["Geoffrey L. Brimhall" <brimhall@pobox.com>]

Package: boot-floppies
Version: 2.2.1-1999-10-22

With NT4.0, you used to be able to have a dual-boot with Linux, where each
OS could reside in it's own primary partition on the same hard-drive. With
Win2k, this is no longer possible.

I've had to play around with creating dual-boot Win2000/Debian linux systems
at work and have found that Win2k requires a strict partitioning of the
hard-drive.

I'm hoping that this info will end up in the boot floppy instructions.

Here's the strict partitioning: A hard disk can have only 1 Primary
partition, and the rest of the hard drive must be allocted under an extended
partition. Within these extended partitions, you can have as many logical
paritions as you like.

Win2k needs to be in the primary partition. Debian Linux (with the two
partitions needed for swap and ext2 filesystems) needs to be in two of the
logical partitions. They can be formated to the standard swap and ext2
filesystems (you're not required to use umsdos or anything like that).

Then, of course, the standard way to boot linux is to have lilo write to the
linux partition, then issue the following command:

dd if=/dev/partition_where_linux_is_installed bs=512 count=1
of=/mounted_primary_partition_where_win2k_is/linux.sys

Then modify /mounted_primary_partition_where_win2k_is/boot.ini, adding the
following line to the end of it:

c:\linux.sys=Linux OS

However, what is cool is that unlike NT4.0, chos can be used as a the boot
loader, which when it pointed to the c:\ drive (for Windoze OS's), will
cause the Win2k boot loader to come up.