Hello!
I have Win XP and Debian Linux installed on seperate hard discs and I
have to swap the cables whenever I want to use each one.
I want to put the Win XP disc on the IDE master interface and Debian
on the IDE slave and use a boot disc to boot into Debian when I need
to. (i.e. if the boot disc is in, the system boots Debian, else boots
Win XP)

I looked at the GRUB docs but I'm finding it hard to follow and I
didn't see a configuration similar to how I want it to work.

Can I do this? Any pointers to tutorials with a recipe on how to do it
would be appreciated.

Many thanks!

[ice] wrote:
> Hello!
> I have Win XP and Debian Linux installed on seperate hard discs and I
> have to swap the cables whenever I want to use each one.
> I want to put the Win XP disc on the IDE master interface and Debian
> on the IDE slave and use a boot disc to boot into Debian when I need
> to. (i.e. if the boot disc is in, the system boots Debian, else boots
> Win XP)

You can do this without a boot disk:

- install Windows XP
=> Windows XP bootloader gets installed on MBR of first disk

- install Debian
=> during setup, choose to install bootloader on root-partition (e.g.
/dev/hdb1)

- use the bootpart program (http://www.winimage,com/bootpart.htm) to add
a pointer to your Debian installation in the XP bootloader menu.

Good luck!
E.T.