DebianThis forum is for the discussion of Debian Linux.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Hokay! I have my Debian Woody humming nicely on my second drive, bootable. On my first drive is Windows XP Home, bootable. For now, I switch the IDE cable back and forth to access the different OS's.
Would I be able to have both drives plugged in, and use a boot manager from a floppy? If so, what would be the steps?
Why of a floppy and not of the MBR of the master drive? You could alter lilo (or grub) to boot both win and linux, and I read up how to do it using the windows bootloader before - so why do it with a floppy? It would be awfully slow in comparison, and floppies are more prone to break...
yea its quite easy with lilo (as far as I'm aware, never run linux and windows together). Try this (not sure if it will work) replacing /dev/hda1 with the windows partition (hda for master primary, hdb for primary slave)
Code:
other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"
don't forget to run the lilo command as root aswel
one more question, both the windows drive and the linux drive are fully bootable independantly, and right now i switch the ide cable.
Should i boot linux, connect the other drive, then run lilo?
are they both primary, and which is the master and which is the slave? I would advise linux as the master and windows as the slave (so they are both connected with a ide ribbon that has two ends, if your using ide???) and then install the boot loader on the master
Right now windows is the master, easily switchable, so i'll do that and just run lilo on the new linux master? and yes, i have a two input ide leading to the mobo, a quick swap and linux would be the master.
Yea, stick linux as the master and windows as the slave seen as the bootloader is going to be on the master (and lilo is the LInuxLOader , makes more sense?). Add that line to your /etc/lilo.conf (i hope you use lilo now, i dont have a clue how grub works but im using it anyway hehe), run lilo then reboot, test that that you can boot into windows. If you can then you rejoice, else back to step one (unfortunately).
MAKE SURE:
to change the linux partition root to whatever partition the root file system is on, in this case, /dev/hda6
to change the windows partition if you have c:\ on say hdb5 (if it were a logical partiton)
i wouldn't advise copying this word for word, I gave you this as an example, because a lilo.conf file may be very different for say mandrake than for debian, so you may not even be able to boot linux! When i use gentoo, unless i added the vga resolutions and stuff like that it would hang on boot! a word of warning for you ....
I made the changes, but forgot to change label to windows, i got the Novell Netware on boot, no problem....
I changed the label to relflect windows, made sure to uncomment restricted, and now on boot after checking dmi pool, instead of LILO, I get LI. lol
I'll tackle this problem fresh tonight, until then i need to cogitate. What could be crashing LILO?
Ok. I changed the jumper setting on windows back to master,
both that and linux are set on master, changed bios to boot the linux drive first,
which it does, and lilo'ed so that it saw the windows drive. Now it only boots Linux
until i bios back to the windows drive.
Windows, naturally, doesnt see the linux drive.
But i have an idea, i'll check back.
That surely isn't safe! you should only have one master on your primary ide controller! Plugging both in will cause trouble, as linux refers to the primary master as /dev/hda so both hard drives will called by this!
I know that its possible to use windows bootloader to boot linux. Google that if you want to try that, I forgot the address I saw it on. I have found some other links though that might help, have a look:
You should probably read them because it's your system, so you're going to understand how it works better than anyone else, plus you will know how to fix in the future :P
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.