Here’s my update.

I attempted two different methods to get this process to work using a Windows XP .iso.

a. I have a laptop with a 100gb IDE hard drive with a Zorin distro on it. The hard drive was originally divided into two partitions, a 1gb extended partition that held the swap space, and the rest of the space was formatted as an ext4 primary partition.

b. I booted the laptop from a USB flash drive containing a copy of a Zorin “Live” distro.

c. I used the GParted tool included within the Zorin Live to further partition the IDE hard drive by creating a 40gb ntfs partition as the first primary partition on the IDE drive.

d. Then I shut down the computer and removed the flash drive.

e. I rebooted the laptop to make sure the Zorin OS residing on the IDE drive still worked.

f. I downloaded an XP .iso file.

g. I extracted the files and folders from the image to my Desktop (so I can check its integrity if necessary).

h. I then dragged-and-dropped the files and folders into the 40gb ntfs partition.

FYI: I use Daemon Tools and Winrar to extract and unpack images from downloaded .iso’s and cd’s. The XP .iso I used contained these folders: DOCS; DOTNETFX; I386; SUPPORT; VALUEADD; and [BOOT]; and these files: AUTORUN.INF; README.HTM; SETUP.EXE; SETUPXP.HTM; WIN51; WIN51IC; and WIN51IC.SP3. These are what I chose to use. Your downloaded .iso or cd may contain different items, such as if you have an OEM cd.

i. That brought me to Step 3 of Admin’s instructions, which is self explanatory and I followed except, according to the Grub4dos Guide (See parenthetical remark in the first “Note” under “Boot Options” section), the last command line (the word “boot”) is not needed and is to be excluded from a text file. Therefore, I changed this:

title Grub for Dos
root (hdx,y)
kernel /grub.exe
boot

to this:

title grub4dos
root (hdx,y)
kernel /grub.exe

j. Step 4 of Administrator’s instructions requires one to access the “chainloader” function of Grub4dos and for Windows 7 the correct command should rightly point to the “bootmgr” function of 7, but for XP either the “setupldr.bin” or the “winnt.exe” functions (as best I can determine) should be invoked. So first I tried this:

grub>find –set-root /setuptldr.bin
grub>chainloader /setupldr.bin
grub>boot

k. And then I tried this:

grub>find –set-root /winnt.exe
grub>chainloader /winnt.exe
grub>boot

Neither of which worked. So, either:

A. one of these two files is the wrong invocation, or
B. both of them are wrong, or
C. the find –set-root command isn’t working, like some had pointed out.

I’m off to seek a solution and will post another update.

Have a good one.

Great idea.

Somebody (possibly someone who got this t’work) should rewrite these instructions in English (less terse/more detailed instruction). Seems like that’s the problem quite a few were havin’ and that means the same’ll be true for many more to come.

Anywaaayyy… couple guys named Zhen & Niggle asked if this would work for XP. The answer to that is – No (Yes, I know it was almost 2 years ago). But I’ve been tryin’ to get it to work for an XP image on-’n'-off for a few days now and ain’t got it t’work yet. I’m combinin’ steps 1-3 above with info gleaned from the “Grub4dos Guide” found here:

http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/Grub4dos.htm

and will post the outcome (good-’r-bad) here when I’m done.

Much obliged.

mount -t auto -o loop “/path to your iso/” /put the path where to mount the iso/