Recovereable dual boot
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A very common problem people encoutered, installing Linux over DOS/Win95 on the same physical harddisk is that, you wrote the Linux bootloader on the Master Boot Record(MBR) of the primary partition that was once used by DOS/Win95 to boot. The consequence, you may encounter problem booting into your Win95 after removing Linux from the bootloader, if you did not "uninstall" Linux properly.

A tip here, you can install your Linux in the following way:

  • Primary partition: With DOS/Win95 MBR
  • Extended partition: With DOS/Win95 format.
  • Extra partition1: Created with Linux Fdisk & unknown to the DOS/Win95 OS, 20Mb+ in size, typed Linux Swap for swap file.
  • Extra partition2: Created with Linux Fdisk & unknown to the DOS/Win95 OS as well, with all the disc space you needed for your Linux installation, typed Linux native. <= put your Linux bootloader here

When prompted for a partition to put your Linux bootloader, choose to put it in Extra partition2.

Heres' the trick: Use your Linux bootup disk's or bootable cdrom's Fdisk utility to set the active bootable flag to Extra partition2 to boot straight into Linux as default. If you so choose to boot into DOS/Win95 at time, type "DOS" or "Win95" or whatever label you used for your alternative operating system specified during installation. Take note that you cannot do this with the DOS/Win95 bootdisk because it allows only the Primary partition be set as the active bootable partition.

In the event that you choose to boot into DOS/Win95 by default, be it temporary or permanently, all you  have to do is use your Linux bootup disk(or bootable cdrom) Fdisk utility again to set the active bootable flag to your Primary Windows partition & vice versa.

The good thing about doing this? Your window's MBR is untouched at all time so you don't risk wrecking havoc on your existing operating system while experimenting with Linux.