Installing Windows^® After Something Else

Modern lore often leads the naive to believe that Windows should always be installed first on any system on which it must co-exist with some other operating system, for instance, Linux. The problem with that is that inevitably Windows will need to be reinstalled. The better approach is to install such that Windows changes nothing at all, or nothing that isn't dead easy simple to undo. Then it doesn't matter what gets installed when.

How? Here's the condensed procedure for an empty single PATA HD system on which a dedicated boot manager that requires its own partition will not be used:

1. Partition completely first, preferably with a cross-platform and/or OS-agnostic tool, to prevent booby traps from unruly installers getting in your way. Reserve for Linux /boot on HDA1, and put a tiny (40 MiB or so) FAT16B on HDA2 or HDA3 for Windows to boot from. Set HDA1 "active".
2. Install Linux, but, put the bootloader on HDA1, not the MBR. Starting with a HD with no installed OS, the installer may not give you this option. If it does not, after installation is complete, install the bootloader to /boot yourself by running your choice of grub-install or lilo .
3. Add a stanza to menu.lst or lilo.conf for the Windows HDA2 or HDA3. Do not include "makeactive", unless you want to always start boot from the NTLoader menu on the successive boot.
4. Set the FAT partition "active".
5. 1. Install Windows.
   2. (optional) Add the Linux HDA1 boot partition to Windows' boot.ini. Reboot to see if the initial boot menu is NTLoader's. If it is not, use a DOS or Windows utility like FDISK to install generic MBR code in place of the non-generic code set there by the Linux installer.
6. Use any of countless DOS or Windows or open source tools to change the "active" partition back to Linux' HDA1 /boot (changing 2 bits in the MBR partition table).

At this point you're ready to boot either OS from the Grub or Lilo menu, with a fallback to booting either Windows or Linux using NTLoader if you chose option 5.B. And, you're doing it with pure generic MBR code, which simply transfers boot control to the boot record of whichever primary partition is set "active".

When you're done doing as above, your disk layout might be logically arranged as follows:

|ID |Dr|Type, description|hd|Format  |Related |Size MiB|
+---+--+-----------------+--+--------+--------+--------+
|01*|  |Prim 83 LinuxNatv| 1|EXT2    |GRUB    |   101.9|
|02 |  |Hide 11 FAT12    | 2|        |        |     7.8|
|03>|C:|Prim 06 FAT16    | 3|FAT16   |MSWIN4.1|    39.2|
|04 |  |Log  82 SunS/SWAP| 5|SWAP    |Linux   |   768.7|
|05 |  |Log  83 LinuxNatv| 6|EXT3    |Linux   |  4800.6|
|06 |D:|Log  0c FAT32-Ext| 7|FAT32   |MSWIN4.1|  3506.3|
|07 |E:|Log  0c FAT32-Ext| 8|FAT32   |MSWIN4.1|  4000.5|
|08 |  |Log  83 LinuxNatv| 9|EXT3    |Linux   |  6243.9|

And your Grub bootloader configuration could look similar to:

default	1
timeout		60
color		cyan/blue white/blue

title		Windows 2000
root		(hd0,2)
# makeactive
chainloader	+1

title		Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.15-23-386
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/vmlinuz-2.6.15-23-386 root=/dev/hda6 ro vga=0x120 nosplash
initrd		/initrd.img-2.6.15-23-386
# savedefault
boot

title		Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.15-23-386 (recovery mode)
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/vmlinuz-2.6.15-23-386 root=/dev/hda6 ro single
initrd		/initrd.img-2.6.15-23-386
boot

If you performed step 5.B., your Windows' boot.ini would be something like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(6)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(6)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
C:\grubboot="Grub Boot Menu"

Assuming your Windows C: drive in Linux is mounted on /disks/C, and the disk partitioning above, you would create C:\grubboot above like so:

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/disks/C/grubboot bs=512 count=1

Any OS installations beyond the first two are easily added to the boot.ini and/or lilo.conf or menu.lst menus. For additional versions of Windows the installer will do boot.ini automatically. Just remember during additional Linux installations to place their boot loaders on their respective /boot or / partitions, and set the Windows primary "active" before every Windows (re)installation.

Related Links

• Disk Partitions, OS/2, & Multiboot FAQ
• Notes on using logical volumes and the Logical Volume Manager (LVM), by Bob Eager
• LVM, FDISK and Partition Magic, by Eirik Overby on OS/2 Voice
• Installing OS/2 with FAT32 around, by Darryl Sperber on OS/2 Voice
• Linux Partition HOWTO, from The Linux Documentation Project
• Hard Disk Upgrade Mini How-To, from The Linux Documentation Project
• Large Disk HOWTO, from The Linux Documentation Project
• Managing Multiple Operating Systems HOWTO, from The Linux Documentation Project
• HOWTO: Multi Disk System Tuning, from The Linux Documentation Project
• Multiboot with GRUB Mini-HOWTO, from The Linux Documentation Project
• Booting with LILO, from The Linux Documentation Project
• Win95 + WinNT + Linux multiboot using LILO mini-HOWTO, from The Linux Documentation Project
• Linux Partitions: A Primer by Dee-Ann LeBlanc on Linux Planet
• Ranish Partitioning Primer
• Hard Disk Drives, from PC Guide/Storage Review
• Gary Field's SCSI Info Central, home of the SCSI FAQ
• Prefixes for Binary Multiples at Everything2
• Knoppix - Rescue via Linux, or simply run Linux from CD
• Recovering Ubuntu After Installing Windows
• Ultimate Boot CD - Many ways to rescue
• Bart's Windows/DOS Boot CD - M$ rescue from CD
• Windowshelp Multiboot
• Microsoft Knowledgebase Vista Multiboot
• Installing Linux after Vista on APC Magazine
• Installing Vista after Linux on APC Magazine

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