dual boot?

[zottejos]

i don't know if i'm asking this in the correct section... if not, can a mod maybe replace this post?

I have read a lot about installing dual boots today, but i couldn't find the answer i'm looking for... maybe looked at the wrong places?
Can somebody help me out with some tips/advice, or a GOOD and SIMPLE url???

i'm a linux newbie, and installed a dual boot about a half year ago (i need the dual boot since i'm a student, and i really need microsoft office, for projects witch can't be replaced with openoffice because of the use of microsofts VB, and i'm using some nifty tools like dreamweaver witch are only running 100% properly under windows in my opinion)
During my initial installation i had windows XP already installed, and i used partitionmagic to divide my primary harddisk (hda) into 3 partitions (the first one is NTFS, the second one ext2 and the thith one linux swap). -> this way, debian installed my bootloader, and everything worked like a charm

Now once again, my windows failed on me, and i had to reinstall.... overwriting my boot sector :(
Now i have two options:

1) reparing the bootsector, and installing a new bootloader (witch seems very difficult, everything i read was for when linux and XP where located on different disks, i found no tutorials for installing a boot loader for 2 OS's on one disk)
2) reinstalling my linux (witch is a petty... since i worked half a year to get everything just like i want it)

can anybody give me some newbie tips on how to install a bootloader without getting to technical (remember you're talking to a newbie ;) )

some extra things:
1) i don't have a floppydrive
2) in case i need it, i DO have a dvd/cd recorder and a usbstick (i heared you have some linuxsystems that fit on it)
3) i'm running debian 4.27

[Hayl]

in your case, all you should need to do is reinstall the linux bootloader that was overwritten by windows.

was it GRUB or LILO?

(if you search our forums there are quite a few noobish posts on how to reinstall GRUB and LILO. if not, please tell us what bootloader it was and someone will be able to help you get it up and running)

[zottejos]

hey man, thanks for the fast response.... i guess i had grub installed (it was the standard bootloader for my version i guess... yeah i know, i should have looked better, but i was happy when it worked... lol)

so i'll search for a good article of how to reinstall grub :)

thank you

[Hayl]

Originally posted by zottejos
so i'll search for a good article of how to reinstall grub :)

my suggestion is to get a liveCD distro like Knoppix then boot it. then chroot into your Debian. then it's just a few commands to get grub to work again.

The Gentoo docs have an explanation of how to install grub. you just need to re-run grub and have it put its stuff in the boot sector.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/2005.0/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10