Quote Originally Posted by caravel
Unfortunately XP still seems to overwrite grub as far as I can tell. Vista probably does the same. The problem is that if XP installs and doesn't overwrite the bootloader then it cannot boot, nor can it manipulate the grub loader to add an entry for it self, so the boot loader is lost (equivalent of doing a fdisk /mbr from win9x or a fixboot or fixmbr from Win32. Simple as that really. The only way to get it working if it did install without overwriting would be to go into /boot/grub/menu.lst and edit it manually, adding a line for XP, but that's a moot point.
Ok, I thought I remembered that it was able to chain the bootloaders - its own, plus whatever existing one(s) - which implied detecting their presence, naturally. I seem to recall that was working (from personal experience, not second-hand) - but perhaps it was only for some specific combo of windows and linux bootloader, or perhaps my memory is foggier than I am aware of.

Quote Originally Posted by caravel
I will probably give it a go. The installation can be forced by adding a line to the .inf file to represent the card and it's device ID. This will cause the old driver to be recognised by plug and play as the driver for the card. It will probably install, though whether it will actually work is another matter.
Cool, you learn something new every day - thanks for the hint.