alright heres the scenario:

right now im using suse linux 8.2 pro. it's set as master on the ide cable, and its on the first ide channel. i would like to have my cd drive as slave on this channel.

i have a win2kpro drive that i want to hook up as master on the second ide channel, and my cd-rw drive will be slave.

i want to be able to duel boot suse and windows.

PLEASE HELP!!!

Have you tried using Grub? It installs by default with SuSE 8.2 Personal... I dual-boot that and XP Pro just fine, but I don't have each OS on a different physical drive.

well, the thing is, my situation is quite different from yours. i'm trying to boot off two physical drives, and im using SuSE 8.2 pro.

Hi frogehh

Ideally - you'd want to install

Win2k 1st

SUSE 2nd

Linux bootloaders are better able to configure existing OS's when they find them than Windows ones are - infact Windows ones are relatively mediocre in this respect.

So - personally - install :

Win2k First - SUSE second

What Linux bootloader are you using with SUSE 8.2 PRO?

Linux sees your Secondary Master channel as

/dev/hdc

If your using LILO and you connect your Win2k drive to /dev/hdc try putting this in the other= section at the bottom of your lilo.conf file.

other=/dev/hdcX
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda

where X is the partition where Win2k resisides on

If your using GRUB - put this in at the bottom of Grub.conf

title Windows
root (hd2,X-1)
makeactive
chainloader +1


were X is the partition that SUSE resides on.

Ive used (X-1) because of the way you describe partitions in GRUB

For example - if SUSE is on your 1st partition of /dev/hdc then

X=1 so X-1 = 1-1 =0 therefore root (hd2,0)

It doesn't matter if you are using Pro or Personal, both use Grub and boot the same way. If you install SuSE AFTER you install Windows, then Grub will install and you can use that. If you install SuSE BEFORE Windows, then Windows will overwrite the MBR and prevent you from booting a non-Windows OS.

alright, that makes sence, but it didnt overwrite the mbr. it just installed windows normally and didnt affect windows at all. i just dont want to have to go into bios every time and tell my computer to read hd-0 or hd-1 first.

So what order did you install the OS's in?

Of course he installed w2k first and then installed suse. maybe he installed grub on logical partition not HDA mbr.

i didnt install anything "first" they are two different hard drives, one has linux, one has windows. both can boot fine when they boot separately, and are put on the first ide channel.

Okay, try this. Reinstall SuSE again now, when it comes to the bootloader configuration, tell it to install it to the MBR of hda.

It sounds to me that what the issue is here is that it sounds like you installed Grub or Lilo to the MBR of your Linux partition and Win2000 installed its bootloader to the MBR of its drive. You need to install Grub to the same MBR where Win2000 installs its bootloader. Grub will then give you a choice to boot either Linux or Windows.

what seems to be the problem,?

you can even have up to 8 systems i think on the same psychical drive
and have multiboot,... you dont even have to use seperate drives,... and every linux distrib (almost any) has a boot manager (lilo & grub &...)

the problem is that i HAVE TO BOOT OFF TWO DIFFERENT DRIVES. one os on each drive.

I don't understand. I have /dev/hda1 (Win2K), /dev/hda5 (Debian, sort of), and /dev/hdb1 (Slack). Win2K came with the thing, I added the second hard drive and put Slack on and installed LILO in the hda mbr. Then I installed Mandrake briefly, resized the Win2K partitions, decided I didn't like Mandrake, and installed Debian. The Debian install got fubared, but it boots.

I dunno why you're so picky but you want /dev/hda to be SuSe and /dev/hdc to be a hard drive with Win2K? So use fdisk to set /dev/hda as bootable, install LILO to the mbr, and set lilo.conf to boot SuSe and Win2K. If Win2K doesn't like that, try setting hdc as bootable and install LILO to *that* mbr, maybe. If Win2K *still* doesn't like it, why not have a normal set up with Win2K on hda and SuSe on hdb? Have LILO on hda mbr and it'll work like a charm.

The fact that it's two different drives doesn't matter - it's still one boot loader controlling the two systems.

Please understand that I have no idea really, because I've never had such an arrangement but, if I was going for it, that's what I'd try. I *do* boot two OSes from two different drives, though, like I say.

Thats exactly what we've been saying all along. It doesn't make a difference if you have a different OS on each drive. Install grub or lilo to the MBR of hda1, set hda1 as the bootable, and you'll be able to choose to boot Windows or Linux on startup. We've been saying that all along because it will work.