[vox-tech] re-installing a boot loader, post windows install

[Marc Elliot Hall]

On Mon, May 16, 2005 at 10:52:09AM -0700, Dylan Beaudette wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Well, I have put off the windows install on my second partition for long 
> enough- dreading the re-installation of my bootloader. I finally purchased 
> VMware, as we have some windows-only apps, and was thinking about installing 
> windows on its own partition. 
> 
With VMWare, you don't need to install Windows on its own partition. In 
fact, this is suboptimal unless you also plan to dual boot.

Rather, use the "virtual disk" functionality to create a virtual
partition in your Linux filesystem. The file can be copied, backed up,
and otherwise manipulated (if you *really* know what you're doing...)
and then reused on other machines. The only drawback is that you can't
boot into Windows without already having Linux running first. Not that
this is necessarily a bad thing, as doing a dual-boot in addition to
installing under VMWare can be a real headache - I've nuked a virtual
machine as well as the dual-boot partition by rebooting into Windows
after having suspended the virtual machine rather than shutting it down.
Bad idea.

Virtual Disk info here:
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws45/doc/disks_vdiskmanager_ws.html



> I know that windows will clobber my bootloader (grub) and i would like to know 
> ahead of time how to get it back once i reboot the machine.
> 
> In the past I have used a Debian net-install CD, but i think that i have a 
> knoppix disk on hand. 
> 
> Does anyone have any suggestions for this process? 
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 
> -- 
> Dylan Beaudette
> Soils and Biogeochemistry Graduate Group
> University of California at Davis
> 530.754.7341
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> vox-tech at lists.lugod.org
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-- 
Marc Elliot Hall
www.hallmarc.net