Re: [gentoo-user] Dual booting Dell with Windows 7

[Willie Wong <wwong@Math.Princeton.EDU>]

On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 06:58:16AM +0000, Mick wrote:
> On Wednesday 17 February 2010 01:12:08 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > On Monday 15 February 2010 23:45:23 Mick wrote:
> > > If I were to [tell] GRUB to chainload W7 [which} should I point it
> > > to? Dell's partition 2 which has the boot flag, or the main W7 OS
> > > partition 3?
> > 
> > The one with W7 on it, I should have thought, as that's the one you want
> > to start. Why not just try it? And when you find out which partition is
> > which, why not set the bootable flag on the right one? I.e. the one with
> > grub in it.
> 
> I am not sure that I would want to do this.  I recall that MSWindows used to 
> be and it possible still is rather sensitive with needing the boot flag on its 
> partition.  Linux on the other hand is a more advanced OS which does not care 
> where the boot flag is.

If you were to go with the GRUB -> W7 route, I don't think just trying
out the two configurations (don't change boot flags, just try each
partition) would've hurt. The worst that I can imagine is an error
thrown about OS not found.

> Nope.  I mean use the Windows 7 bootloader as the primary bootloader to 
> chainload GRUB from the Gentoo partition.  The MSWindows stays in the MBR as 
> it is now, the GRUB is installed in the Gentoo /boot partition.  MSWindows 
> bootloader chainloads GRUB.
> 
I wish you good luck with your project.

> PPS.  I am making some progress with this (at least in terms of googling) and 
> will report back as soon as I have achieved this MSWindows --> chainloading --
> > Gentoo thing.

Please do write a page on the Wiki (or at least a summary of what you
did to this mailing list). This will be some handy information to
have. 

Cheers, 

W

-- 
Willie W. Wong                                     wwong@math.princeton.edu
Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire 
         et vice versa   ~~~  I. Newton