Re: Sarge Test Candidate 1 broke WinXP on my triple-boot i386
> When the system rebooted I did not immediately boot
> Debian to continue the install. Instead, I asked GRUB
> to boot Windows, which correctly booted the NT boot
> loader. When I asked the NT boot loader to boot
> WinXP, however, XP errored out with a message saying
> that <Windows root>\system32\hal.dll was missing or
> corrupt. (Oddly, Win98 still boots fine from the NT
> boot loader.)
>
> I find it hard to believe that the Debian installer
> really did trash my system32\hal.dll file. In fact, I
It did not. Nothing in any d-i module is writing to any partition
other than those you choose to install to.
It has been confirmed many times that the installed GRUB still allows
booting a NT/W2K/XP partition, thus with the NT boot loader.
I even myself did the exact same test you describe (except the
alternate boot on Win98) and it worked OK. After the 1st reboot, the
system was able to boot XP with no problem.
> Further, my efforts at repairing XP have somehow
> removed GRUB, so the system now boots straight to the
> NT boot loader, so even if I fix XP, I'll need to
> reinstall Debian, which will presumably nuke XP again!
There is absolutely no reason and no magic. Debian Installer does
*not* write to any Windows partition. It just installs the boot loader
on your primary disk.
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