>On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Elmer E. Dow <elmere...@att.net> wrote: [snip]
> >So I used dban on the partitions to assure a fresh start, then reinstalled > XP using the built-in restore feature. I expected that XP would do what it > did during the last installation session: allocate the >whole drive to > itself. Then I expected to go in with gparted and set up the Linux > partitions. > [snip] >From my experience, dban'ing messes up the mbr, even if you don't destroy the whole drive (i.e. even if you select a few partitions from the dban screen instead of them all). It deletes the partition but doesn't update the partition table per say. My guess is this is where the trouble started. You could try and fix this using the cfdisk command via an Ubuntu Live CD, it's worked before for me to rewrite the mbr according to the partition locations it recognizes, and you can also use it to make the XP partition bootable by toggling the bootable flag on but it sounds like XP is already bootable for you. Might save you some headache in the future though. [snip] >I'm concerned that the new Lenny installations won't be able to see the XP partition. [snip] What I've done for dual-boots is to first make sure the machine boots to Windows before installing Debian. If it does that, the mbr is in tact and Grub has always recognized the Windows installation, for me at least. Mark
