Boot master record problem w LINUX/XP

Yo all,

downloaded a 3-CD ISO of Mandrake Linux 8.2. My thought was/is to create a dual boot configuration on my computer. This is what i did:

*Scandisk/Defrag on both harddrives.
*Used Partition Magic 7.0 to create a 6.4 Gb Linux ext2 logical partion in hdd0 + a 2 Gb swap file on hdd1
*Rebooted from Mandrake CD and made a full install, including Linux bootmanager LILO.

I am astonished too see this extremely smooth graphic Linux installation. I´m impressed by all options avalible for installation + the fact that it recognized all my hardware at once. It also took only about 10 minutes in total.

But I cannot boot into this OS!! No matter what I do, XP still starts. The start menu that would let me choose wich OS I wish to use never appears. I thought about using Boot Magic, but it only works with FAT(I use NTFS). I tried reinstalling Mandrake three times, and used different settings for LILO.

Any ideas?

regards,
Henry

When you go through the installer for Mandrake make sure you install the boot loader, or create a boot disk. In your case since your partitioning is done in NTFS, which Linux can read and write to (but Windows won't read the journaling correctly and you lose whatever's on that drive) I would use a boot disk... unless you want to repartition and reformat your drives.

If you reinstall XP I'd do it on it's own seperate partition using NTFS, and creating a partition for all your apps/files/etc in FAT32... and using a filesystem like ReiserFS for linux... and your computer should be able to see/mount the FAT32 partition during install... which you will would be called something like /mnt/windows... if you already have files on that FAT32 partition, i wouldn't format it though

Creating a seperate boot partition /boot would be a good idea too... which would contain the MBR and lilo would be written here and would give you the options of booting XP