MBR Madness!

Welcome to Just Ask Matt! - The IT industry’s answer to the help column, only slightly more medicated. Today, Rick writes:

Matt, I am curious. I have read your work stating that Linux is this and that, but is it for primetime, really? I am interested in moving to it or at least trying. Yet, I am still a little leery since the last time I tried it I could not get Windows XP installed on my system. It would boot off of the disk, than freeze. Can you tell me how to fix this if I decide to try it again?

One of the first ways to prevent this, from my limited experience with Linux, is to dual boot. Most modern Linux distributions make this super easy like Linspire, Xandros and Knoppix on a HD install.

If you decide to install the Linux distro on the entire drive and then later, want it to be removed, you can take your Windows XP CD and use the recovery console from the installation menu. Once at the console, just follow the instructions laid out for you in this article from Microsoft. As for partition deletion, I have had success with FDISK in that area. Hope that helps!

Do you have an IT-related question? Perhaps you are just burnt out on writing on the walls with crayons? Whatever the
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