XP won't boot after Linux install

[Jim Long]

Mike Gorse said:
> I've installed Linux on my IBM Thinkpad R40 using parted
> 1.6.5 to shrink the ~50gb Windows (FAT32) partition, and
> lilo boots Linux fine, but XP won't boot.)B  It gives a
> UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME message and then reboots

Since you are getting that error message it sounds like
you successfully got Lilo to point to NTLDR, which then
looks at the text file boot.ini. If you saw the NT boot
menu you know you've gotten this far. It might be that the
boot.ini is no longer correct, and points to the wrong
drive, for example if you installed a new small boot
partition before the existing Windows partition you need
to edit your boot.ini file to show the correct partition
for XP - Every time you see "partition(1)" change it to
"partition(2)" 
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT

If you did not install a new partition before the Windows
partition then maybe the problem is that shrinkning the
Windows partition messed up the partition too much. You
can disprove this by putting the NT/XP boot files on a NT
format floppy and booting from the floppy. The floppy must
have been formatted on XP or another version of NT --
Windows 9x won't do. Copy ntldr, boot.ini, and
NTDETECT.COM to the floppy; check boot.ini to make sure it
points to the right partition; and reboot. If you can
boot, the problem is probably minor. If the boot floppy
does not work then then maybe I left out a step, or in
the worst case, you need to reinstall XP, including
reformatting the hard drive.

If the boot disk WORKED in the step above, I think the
easiest way to fix your problem is to switch to
multibooting from the NT loader instead of from Lilo. I
have set up multi booting both ways, but I found that
using the NT loader is much better documented.
Articles of setting up dual boot using NT boot loader:
http://www.littlewhitedog.com/reviews_other_00011.asp
http://www.enterprisedt.com/publications/dual_boot.html
http://www.tburke.net/info/ntldr/ntldr_hacking_guide.htm#lingen
http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html

After looking at the above articles I think the following
steps might be the easiest way to get to multi-booting
from where you are.)B  Assuming you have Windows on the
first partition, and Linux Loader in the master boot
record now, Here's how to get to a dual boot systems using
NT boot loader: 
1. Boot to Linux, Mount the Windows drive read/write
2. Copy the Linux bootsector to a file:
)B   dd if=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 of=/mnt/hda1/bootsect.lnx
)B   (if LiLo is in the MBR of hda, and hda1 is the fat3
   Windows partition.)
)B   or, dd if=/dev/hda1 bs=512 count=1 of=/mnt/hda1/bootsect.lnx
)B   if Lilo is on the root of the first partition.
3. Add this line to c:\boot.ini
)B   c:\bootsect.lnx="Linux"   
)B   Use any descriptive text in place of "Linux"
)B   Also make sure the timeout is not set to zero, so that
)B   you will have a chance to select from the items on the
)B   menu.
4. Restore the Windows MRB, for instance by using a DOS
)B   boot disk with fdisk:
)B   fdisk /mbr

Jim Long
)B   
)B