I have Linux Mint 4.0 installed on my Hard Drive, and I need to install Windows XP Media Center Edition?

I want to be able to do this without affecting the Linux installation, or would it be better to install XP first then reinstall Linux.

I have Linux Mint 4.0 installed on my Hard Drive, and I need to install Windows XP Media Center Edition?
Since Windows will [rudely] wipe your MBR and cause Linux not to boot, I expect reinstalling Linux after Windows is a reasonable approach.



You could also make and then restore a backup of the MBR using Linux - if you know how, it's simple. But so is just redoing Linux.



PCLinuxOS here - along with Kubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, whatever. Lots of experience on restoring Grub from wayward installs of whatever!



Good luck!
Reply:How much time do you want to put into this?



If you have XP partitions in place, install XP and when that is running properly, reinstall grub. Use google to read up on how to reinstall grub under Mint.



If you don't have XP partitions, the question is if you can install windoze after linux or not. My dell laptop has a hidden dos utility partition first, so XP does not have to be first - so it may work to install XP, just shrink the linux partitions tocreate the space. But you will still need to reinstall grub. I don't think you can move the linux partitions back to put XP first - Mint will be looking for the old locations.



When push comes to shove and nothing works. Install XP and then install Linux - and set up a separate /home partition.
Reply:it has been my experience to install windows first because windows does not function at all in a Linux enviroment. so uninstall Linux fdisk the linux partition so you have a Windows NTFS partition and a Linux partition then install windows then setup dual boot and install Linux
Reply:That's why I always set up Linux with separate / and /home partitions. It makes restoring much less of a hassle.



I did a quick look on the internet. It appears that you can restore GRUB by following these simple steps:



1. Boot a LiveCD and open a terminal.

2. Enter "grub".

3. Enter "find /boot/grub/stage1"



You'll get something like: (hd0,2)



4. Enter "root (whatever result you got)

5. Enter "setup (hd0)

6. Enter "quit"
Reply:yeah it'd be better to just install Windows and reinstall Linux. Or you could install XP and just use a grub boot disk to install grub



I think it MIGHT be possible to configure the Windows bootloader to boot Linux, since that's kinda what the wubi installer does.