What have I changed by accident?

This can't be that complicated.

It worked before.

I repeatedly reinstalled an XP/Reactos (flipping between) partition and
it kept messing up my ubuntu/caelinux which had to be wiped and
reinstalled. I had the reverse problem, it wanted to installe ANOTHER ubuntu
next to the old one. Now, it wants to erase everything and go solo.

I tried caelite, too, same issue.

The MS XP/DOS boot loader works fine, after a few scares.

Have used the MS and GNU boot repair software on rescatux but it won't finish
(error message only says won't not why). However I have been using the
rescatux version of gparted which has fewer flags than my other gparted. so
guess older.

--
Vasos Panagiotopoulos panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---

vjp2.at@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
> What have I changed by accident?

How should we know, when you tell us little of what you have done.

> This can't be that complicated.

It is not, unless you keep repeating the same mistake over and over
again (as you have now been doing for months).

You really need to install VirtualBox onto your system. Then create
virtual machines for all these esoteric OS'es you want to install. In
so doing, you will not break your main machine's boot loader, nor will
you have to worry about OS #2 overwriting the boot loader of OS #1
(provided you create separate virtual machines for each).

> I repeatedly reinstalled an XP/Reactos (flipping between) partition and
> it kept messing up my ubuntu/caelinux which had to be wiped and
> reinstalled. I had the reverse problem, it wanted to installe ANOTHER ubuntu
> next to the old one. Now, it wants to erase everything and go solo.

See, there is the mistake you keep repeating. Don't keep
'reinstalling' on the main system. Pick a master OS for the computer,
install VirtualBox on that OS, then install all these other old OS
images into separate virtual machines.

On 2023-05-26 16:40, vjp2.at@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
> What have I changed by accident?
>
Nothing.

> This can't be that complicated.
>
> It worked before.
>
I don't know how.

> I repeatedly reinstalled an XP/Reactos (flipping between) partition and
> it kept messing up my ubuntu/caelinux which had to be wiped and
> reinstalled. I had the reverse problem, it wanted to installe ANOTHER ubuntu
> next to the old one. Now, it wants to erase everything and go solo.
>
> I tried caelite, too, same issue.

If you have a computer that's modern enough to have UEFI BIOS firmware,
just do as others have said, pick a Linux, install it, and use
VirtualBox for "XP/Reactos." It could easily be that the Reactos can't
handle a UEFI BIOS. It's certain that XP can't.

If you have a legacy BIOS, the same advice would be the best, but...

I only have recent experience with dual-booting various versions of
Mageia, but I can tell you that when I install a version of Mageia it
installs its own bootloader - but that bootloader will also boot the
other OS's that are present if you so choose.

You write "XP/Reactos" as if it were a single install, so if you simply
must dual-boot, the recommended procedure with Mageia would be to
install that first. (Windows always assumes it is the only OS on the
system, so it must be installed first or it will wipe out everything else.)

Then, boot a Mageia install iso, and when the choice for partitioning
comes up, choose the option for "unused space on the Windows partition."
The partitions will be re-sized and formatted, and Mageia will be
installed, including the Mageia bootloader. I don't know about Reactos,
but with "real" XP, the Mageia grub2 bootloader will boot either one.

I HIGHLY suspect that any other decent Linux distro will do the same.

TJ

TUrning off UEFI got it back to allowing "along side" installation

--
Vasos Panagiotopoulos panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---