Thanks for the reply. I figured out what happened. The Debian installer changed the partition number of my XP partition, I think by changing it from a primary partition to a logical partition.
After a lot of Googling, I learned that the NT boot loader is a program named ntldr in my Win98 C:\ that is configured by a (hidden) text file (thank God) named boot.ini also in C:\. I edited boot.ini so that instead of looking for WinXP in partition 2, it now looks for it in partition 3, and XP boots fine. So, the question now is, why did partitioning move my XP partition when all I asked it to do was delete my Mandrake partitions and create Debian partitions in their stead? Another question: I tried reinstalling Debian, and now the GRUB installer does not notice Windows and so does not create a boot-menu option for it. I aborted the installation because that gave me the willies. Franz --- Christian Perrier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > When the system rebooted I did not immediately > boot > > Debian to continue the install. Instead, I asked > GRUB > > to boot Windows, which correctly booted the NT > boot > > loader. When I asked the NT boot loader to boot > > WinXP, however, XP errored out with a message > saying > > that <Windows root>\system32\hal.dll was missing > or > > corrupt. (Oddly, Win98 still boots fine from the > NT > > boot loader.) > > > > I find it hard to believe that the Debian > installer > > really did trash my system32\hal.dll file. In > fact, I > > It did not. Nothing in any d-i module is writing to > any partition > other than those you choose to install to. > > It has been confirmed many times that the installed > GRUB still allows > booting a NT/W2K/XP partition, thus with the NT boot > loader. > > I even myself did the exact same test you describe > (except the > alternate boot on Win98) and it worked OK. After the > 1st reboot, the > system was able to boot XP with no problem. > > > Further, my efforts at repairing XP have somehow > > removed GRUB, so the system now boots straight to > the > > NT boot loader, so even if I fix XP, I'll need to > > reinstall Debian, which will presumably nuke XP > again! > > There is absolutely no reason and no magic. Debian > Installer does > *not* write to any Windows partition. It just > installs the boot loader > on your primary disk. > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
