I was recently assigned the task of converting a system running Windows XP to dual-boot Windows and Linux. The user needed to run Windows most of the time, but occasionally needed to boot Linux to run special applications. The one overriding requirement was to change the existing Windows setup as little as possible. In this case, that meant adding a second hard drive. Easy enough, right? Well, not so fast.

A nice run through on how to setup the boot partition on a Windows drive so that the Linux installation on the 2nd drive can bootup. Advantages include:

• The Windows configuration remains essentially untouched.
• No changes to the Windows hard drive boot sector are necessary.
• Removing Linux from the machine is simple: physically remove the Linux disk and remove the Linux entry from boot.ini under Windows.
• Windows users have a tendency to reinstall the OS from time to time. If that occurs on this system, the Linux disk would be untouched (although you might not be able to boot to it until you copy the boot sector again and fix boot.ini).