I've already got Win 2000, ME, and Debian Linux on my system. I know the Windows dual boot is fairly automatic, but the guy who installed Linux for me got the triple boot thing going, and I'm not sure how he did it! Basically, at boot-time, I can choose between Linux and Windows, and then if I choose Windows, it takes me to what I expect is Windows' automatic dual boot choice screen with Win 2000 and ME listed as options.

I want to get rid of Win 2K and install Win XP in its place. What would be the cleanest way to do this? Should I wait to format the partition Win 2000 is on until I'm in the middle of the Win XP installation? I'm not even sure if my Win 2000 partition is currently NTFS or FAT32. What's an easy way to determine this? Does it even matter?

So, basically, I'm hoping that Win XP could end up in Win 2000's spot on the OS choices at boot-up. Could it be this simple?

Thanks!

Heheheh my young padawan. The Dark Side I sense in you....


Please post the contents of the two following files:

1) in linux / , the file /etc/lilo.conf

2) in windows, the file c: , boot.ini


You get 1) by

bash$> cat /etc/lilo.conf > file1.txt

and under windows 2) by :

more c:\boot.ini > file2.txt

these operations in MS-DOS window or terminal window or cmd.exe. use respective text editor edit.exe, notepad.exe or pico, emacs or whatever....

post file1.txt and file2.txt here for us to read. or whatever.... open these files in text editors and paste them here... whatever... i just wanna read your various start up scripts in case i need to edit them.....

boot.ini

Here are the contents of the boot.ini file in Win ME:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
C:\="Microsoft Windows"


I'll be back in a minute with the Linux one...

linux problem

I can get into my normal user account in Debian just fine. However, it's been a LONG time since I've logged in as the Administrator, and I feel like I'm pretty sure that I know the password, but it keeps saying that Authentication has failed.

Thus, it seems that I don't have permission to view the lilo.conf file.

Is the Admin username root? That's what I'm trying to use.

Any ideas on how to hack into my system's copy of Linux?

got lilo.conf !!!

I don't understand. On the main login screen, I couldn't get in with username as root and the correct password. But, from a terminal in Linux, I ssh'ed into root@mysystem and used what I thought was the password and got in!

Anyway, my lilo.conf will be in the next post, b/c Netscape isn't letting me paste for some reason.

lilo.conf

(attached as text)