On 2 May 2008, at 18:52, Michael Higgins wrote:
> ...
> I have a laptop with a spare partition waiting for WinXP, to install
> from Dell OEM disks that came originally.
>
> Is this possible? I understand XP will overwrite the MBR. So, I'd have
> to re-install grub & that's it? '-)

See also Mark Knecht's reply to your message (2 May 2008 19:03:38
BDT) and my reply to that (just now).

But IME all you need to do, after installing XP & losing Grub's MBR
is reboot from a Gentoo LiveCD and run the `grub` command, as shown
as Code Listing 2.29 of the Gentoo Linux x86 Quick Install Guide.

I wouldn't call this "installing Grub" - as that, to me, implies
emerging the rest of Grub, too (and that's not necessary), but I see
the Quick Install Guide does.

That done, the laptop will boot normally to Gentoo, and you can edit
grub.conf to add a chainloader section which points to the
appropriate partition.

Stroller.
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