Windows dual-boot question..

[mikeymike]

I was under the impression you could still do fixmbr and fixboot from windows recovery console instead of reinstalling.

Except that the setup CD sometimes chooses not to recognise an existing NTx system partition and claims you don't have one.  Which is really irritating.

[ple3003]

No real simple solutions, but what could be expected from Windows;)..

1. Delete all partitions. make 3 PRIMARY partitions. Extended are just gonna mess things up. "Ranish partition manager" will let you make 3 primary partitions. download it now.
2. activate boot flag on the first partition in partition manager. THIS WILL MAKE IT c:. install windows1 on c:.
3. activate boot flag on the second partition in partition manager. THIS WILL MAKE IT c:. install windows2 on c:.
4. install "Extended Operating System Loader" aka XOSL on whatever partition is c: for the moment.

The third partition will always be e: and it will be great to save files to when formatting another time.
the first and second partition will will swap the letters c: and d: depending on which is active.

This is my solution. No need to make things harder than they are.