Q4OS Forum

eyespy

Member

Registered: 2017-04-23

Posts: 8

? related to dual booting XP & Q4OS - XP & Win7 already installed

To those who are in the know?

My PC is a HP Compaq Elite 8300 Small Form Factor unit with 4Gb Ram

1. I currently have a 100Gb SSD Drive with Windows 7 installed thereon which is designated C: Drive.
2. Then I have a second SATA3 Drive partitioned with drive letters D: & E: D: drive has XP installed and E: drive is used for data programs etc for both Win7 & XP & both drives are currently visible.
3. The bootloader used to achieve the dual boot was EasyBCD - from NeoSmart Technologies

Now heres the rub or the proposal if you like, what I want to do is remove the Win7 SSD drive (Drive C: 100gb) & interchange it with another SATA3 drive that has two patitions, the first partition is approx 100gb File format Ext4 & the second partition is NTFS. I want to install Q4OS to the Ext4 (1st patition) and setup a dual boot to boot from Q4OS & XP without scrambling up the drive lettering. Now I know it would probably be easier to overwrite the win7 SSD with Q4OS but I do not want to do that if at all possible & I'm kinda hoping that both systems will remain visible but I think XP will have difficulty in reading a Ext4 partition so that is kinda stretchin a bridge to far maybe in that regard.

Could someone offer some guidance on achieving this in the easiest manner to dual-boot XP (already installed) with Q4OS (to be installed)

Best Regards

David

JimW

Member

Registered: 2015-12-08

Posts: 400

Re: ? related to dual booting XP & Q4OS - XP & Win7 already installed

I have not worked with an SSD drive, but have you checked out the Windows installer? That loads Q4OS as a program under Windows.

https://www.q4os.org/downloads1.html

video -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAQohrvvC2U

Last edited by JimW (2019-09-18 01:02)

eyespy

Member

Registered: 2017-04-23

Posts: 8

Re: ? related to dual booting XP & Q4OS - XP & Win7 already installed

Hi JimW,

Firstly thanks for your reply but I am going to remove the SSD drive with win7 and replace it with a SATA3 drive formatted to Ext4 & hope to install Q4OS. In respect of the windows installer XP does not seem to be supported which I find slightly strange in the respect that Q4OS is closely related to the XPQ4 program & yet is not included in the supported OS's. Secondly the windows installer is called "XP"-Q4 maybe its because XP is no longer supported by M$?

So yes I would like to use the windows installer but it is unsupported in respect of XP & the SSD drive is to be exchanged. If things do not work out in respect of Q4OS I can change back very easily to the SSD & Win7

Best Regards,

David

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: ? related to dual booting XP & Q4OS - XP & Win7 already installed

This will depend on how you are booting, if you are using UEFI it might be easier as each distro can maintain it's own bootloading separately, but if you are using MBR booting (or legacy on a UEFI machine) it will be a little more tricky as you will need to keep Windows Xp's own bootloader somewhere, although easyBCD might do that for you I cannot really say as I have not used it.

What I would recommend is to remove both the Windows HDD/SSD's and just have your blank drive installed, then install Q4OS and ensure it is functioning correctly and updated. Next I would re-insert the WinXp drive and from the Q4OS installation run sudo update-grub this should find your windows Xp installation and add it to it's own grub menu and you could then boot from either OS using grub. If at some stage you want to use your Windows 7 drive, you can simply remove the Q4OS drive and re-insert the Win7 one and everything will be back to where you started from. This is what I would do in your situation anyway.

eyespy

Member

Registered: 2017-04-23

Posts: 8

Re: ? related to dual booting XP & Q4OS - XP & Win7 already installed

Hi Dai_trying

Much appreciated the advise you have given & I think your right EasyBCD is a windows program essentially & would probably struggle to find the XP Bootloader from Q4OS as there is no linux EasyBCD varient as far as I can tell or know of.

Things can easily be reverted if, whatever reason things don't work out so what you are suggesting ticks all the boxes, I will let you know how I get on in my endeavours. I am not familiar with Grub I assume the grub bootloader can be configured without affecting the Mbr just guessing.

Anyway many thanks for your suggestions they are much appreciated.

Best Regards,

David

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: ? related to dual booting XP & Q4OS - XP & Win7 already installed

Grub will be installed to the MBR of the installed HDD/SSD so cannot affect the other disks, you should be quite safe if no other drives are present.

eyespy

Member

Registered: 2017-04-23

Posts: 8

Re: ? related to dual booting XP & Q4OS - XP & Win7 already installed

Hi Dai_trying,

I have followed your instructs in post #4 but although grub recognised the XP system I am now finding that NO boot menu is being provided & when I go to restart the PC Q4OS hangs with a black blank screen and a mouse cursor. the only way I can get Q4OS to work is by switching the PC Off & then restart from scratch. Is there something that is wrong here please!

Can the grub loader or accompanying loader file be edited manually to check if it is correct as a process of elimination?

Best regards,

David

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: ? related to dual booting XP & Q4OS - XP & Win7 already installed

I'm not sure what causes this, it is possible that easyBCD has changed something that does this... I cannot say for sure as I have never needed to use it.

Does everything boot correctly if you remove the Debian drive and put the Win7 drive back in?

eyespy

Member

Registered: 2017-04-23

Posts: 8

Re: ? related to dual booting XP & Q4OS - XP & Win7 already installed

Hi Dai_Trying,

Well I think we are are on the same wave length in this regard because what I did was to reinstall Xp with a clean install with the Win7 SSD drive removed & installed Q4OS onto the second SATA3 drive with no additional partitions (Classical install method). I then went through the procedure you described namely Sudo update-grub with the xp SATA3 installed & it found it in the command prompt desription, but when I came to reboot hoping to find the two boot items listed it failed & just Loaded Q4OS again (No Menu).

So I thought  maybe if I disconnect the Q4OS HDD boot back into WinXP & Downloaded Grub2Win to try to setup the boot menu from Windows XP HDD instead, alas Grub2win cannot find the Q4OS HDD & if you reconnect both Drives so both drives are being read in the bios Q4OS is dominant & boots with no menu. Is there anyway I can stall out Q4OS from booting in preference for XP with both drives connected or being read in the bios to re-attempt to setup a boot menu from XP?

Best Regards

David

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,993

Re: ? related to dual booting XP & Q4OS - XP & Win7 already installed

Is there anyway I can stall out Q4OS from booting in preference for XP with both drives connected or being read in the bios to re-attempt to setup a boot menu from XP?

Yes, you can edit the file /etc/default/grub and change the line GRUB_TIMEOUT=0 to read GRUB_TIMEOUT=5 which will give you the grub displayed for 5 seconds before booting the default. remember to sudo update-grub after you make changes to the grub file in order to establish them.