On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 22:14:41 -0500 John <JohnRChamplin@columbus.rr.com> wrote: > > I do not fully understand what happened. I was NOT using any repair > CD; the only XP resources available were those on the partition I had > copied via dd to /dev/hdb1 (D:, in Windows talk) from /dev/hda1 > > Remember, after I had copied my XP partition, I edited grub and then > successfully booted into XP. It then found both C: and D:. At that > point, I took back /dev/hda1 for Debian, found myself unable to get > XP to boot, and finally wrote debian-user for help. My best > UNconfident guess is that when I was finally able (thanks to using > grub's "map" optionon your advice), XP sensed something was wrong and > just decided to reinstall itself without asking permission. But just > how that came about is a mystery to me still. > its really pretty simple, Windows doesn't like to boot off of any drive but the first partition of the first hard-drive. Why? who knows. but the "map" commands you used in GRUB fool it into thinking its the first drive so then it boots just fine. I can only guess that as part of its boot process it checks for certain bits on the disk, but being Windows, it doesn't specify "my" disk, but "the first" disk... you know what happens when you assume. You happened to have XP on BOTH disks and since they were duplicate images, your D: windows found what it needed on the C: drive and thus booted... until you killed the C: drive. make sense? in fact, as I go back and read this over, it makes even more sense. Its probably not that windows "Cares" which partition its one, but that its hardwired to access the first disk for something during its boot process and when it isn't the first disk, fails. THe "map" redirects that access to the proper disk. A
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