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11th February 2007

HOOKING THE LINUX BOOTLOADER INTO THE WINDOWS XP BOOTLOADER

Brian Grainger


 

You are going to edit the file boot.ini. It is a very important file and you must take great care to get the editing correct. Any mistakes that cause Windows to stop working are not easily corrected - especially if you bought your PC with Windows XP pre-installed. However, the editing that has to be done is small so, as long as care is taken, you should be alright. The instructions below may seem daunting but, in fact, you are only adding or amending two lines in boot.ini.

Before you start you may like to make a backup copy of boot.ini. Follow the first instructions in Method (b) to make it visible and then use Windows Explorer to make a copy.

There are two ways to edit boot.ini:

(a) through the Windows system tools

(b) manually.

I strongly recommend method (a) because it is easier.
If, for some reason, the system tool is not available then use method (b).


Method (a)

  • From the Start Menu select Control Panel

  • Open System

  • Select the Advanced tab

  • You will see three buttons all labelled Settings.
    Click the Settings button for Startup and Recovery

  • Ensure the option Time to display list of operating systems is ticked and select a delay time.

    This delay defines how long, in seconds, the list of operating systems is shown before the default automatically starts. The value chosen is a matter of personal choice. The smaller the value, the quicker the default, usually Windows, will boot. The larger the value, the longer you have to select Linux. I suggest newbies start with a value of 10 to give plenty of time to make a selection. As you gain experience you may find this too slow when booting the default system. For this reason, I use a value of 2 and when I want to choose Linux I get ready with my finger on the keyboard! You can always change the value later if you don't get it right first time.

  • click the Edit button

  • Add the following line to the list in the [operating systems] section. This line is usually the last line in the file. Type the line EXACTLY, including quotes, and press Enter at the end.

    c:\grldr="Start Linux"

  • Close the Notepad window and click the Yes button when asked 'Do you want to save the changes?'

  • Click the OK button on the Startup and Recovery window.

  • Click the OK button on the System Properties window.

  • Close the Control Panel window.


Method (b)

The boot.ini file is a system, hidden and read only file. Configure Windows Explorer to view such files:

  • Select Tools then Folder options from the menus
  • Click the View tab
  • Under Hidden files and folders select Show hidden files and folders
  • Under Files and Folders remove the tick from:
    Hide extensions for known file types
    Hide protected operating systems (Recommended)
  • Click the OK button in the Folder Options window.

To edit boot.ini carry out the following steps.

  • With Windows Explorer select boot.ini. in the C drive. It is not in a folder.
  • Right click boot.ini and select Properties
  • Remove the tick from the Read-only attribute
  • Click the OK button in the boot.ini Properties window
  • Right click boot.ini and select Open
  • Ensure there is a line like the following under the [boot loader] line

    timeout=10

    If this line does not exist then add it immediately under the [boot loader] line

    The number defines how long, in seconds, the list of operating systems is shown before the default automatically starts. The value chosen is a matter of personal choice. The smaller the value, the quicker the default, usually Windows, will boot. The larger the value, the longer you have to select Linux. I suggest newbies start with a value of 10 to give plenty of time to make a selection. As you gain experience you may find this too slow when booting the default system. For this reason, I use a value of 2 and when I want to choose Linux I get ready with my finger on the keyboard! You can always change the value later if you don't get it right first time.

  • Add the following line to the list in the [operating systems] section. This line is usually the last line in the file. Type the line EXACTLY, including quotes, and press Enter at the end.

    c:\grldr="Start Linux"

  • Close the Notepad window and click the Yes button when asked 'Do you want to save the changes?'

  • Right click boot.ini and select Properties
  • Tick the Read-only attribute
  • Click the OK button in the boot.ini Properties window

If you made any adjustments to Windows Explorer to enable you to view boot.ini, you may wish to reverse the adjustments now.


Whichever method of editing boot.ini is chosen you should end up with a file that looks something like the following, which is how it might appear on my PC. How it looks on your PC depends on the initial Windows setup.

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
c:\grldr="Start Linux"

Note that the line multi(0)... /fastdetect is all one line, even though it may be displayed on 2 screen lines.

That's the end of Step 2

Click HERE to proceed to Step 3


 

 

 

 

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