Hello,

I have tried finding this info on the net & have also asked around in newsgroups but am still a bit lost so thought i'd throw it your way.

Am wanting to get my head around this.

A computer i use has 2 hdds One primary & one slave. On the primary (20 gig) i have divided into 2 partitions ( primary 12 gig & logical 8 gig ) Win 98 installed on the primary & W2k on thelogical 8 gig. That is all working OK. The other hdd is also 20 gig & is runnnig RedHat 7.2. Now my question. While i was installing the 2 window O/S's i disconnected the slave's hdd so not to cause problems. I have now reconnected it. When starting machine i see the NT bootloader with bother Windows 2000 pro & win 98 which i can boot into both. If i put in my LINUX boot disk i can boot into Linux but how do i add the 2 hdd's together again ??

I don't care if i do it through NTLDR or LILO but rather than using the floppy all the time i'd rather it be a bit more streamlined. How do i add linux to NTLDR rather than windows to LILO ??
The reason i ask this is that when editing the lilo.conf file if i make a mistake it writes MBR to the primary drive overwriting boot.ini file stopping me getting back into windows without its own boot disk..

I just want to learn this stuff . From my searches i can see this is a common problem but know that it is doable. I have had it working before..


Regards Andrew

"While i was installing the 2 window O/S's i disconnected the slave's hdd so not to cause problems." doesn't make sense. You mean you disconnected hd1 for installing Linux on hd2? Linux will think it boots to hd1. That causes prob. You'll have to edit & run lilo again.

# After you installed XP on /dev/hda1
# & Linux with lilo on /dev/hda2
#
# Replace /dev/hda2 if need be
#
Boot Linux & open terminal
mount /mnt/floppy
dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/mnt/floppy/boot.lnx bs=512 count=1
cp boot.lnx /mnt/floppy
umount /mnt/floppy
Boot XP
copy boot.lnx c:\
edit boot.ini
After multi(0)..., add a new line
C:\boot.lnx="linux"
Reboot

Hi, jester. I got you e-mail yesterday, oops the day before yesterday, and I just replied to it, I included a link there on how to setup dual boot W2K+Win98 and Linux with NTLOADER. So I hope it is helpful. Here is the link one more time http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/multibootlinux/ you can skip HD preparation and crap because you are not going to install any OS over again, so look up the lilo config and NTloader configuration.

I've made similar efforts with multiple drives and Linux is very fussy about where it sees itself. It distinguishes the primary and secondary slaves and master as being completely different. It is not like Windows that always sees the boot disk as c: -- and even there I've seen some differences. It gets even stranger in Windows if you add a second msdos drive which always shows up in the same place before any added partitions. In other words if you partition the booting drive in Windows, the second drive always shows up after C: as D: and then the partitions follow. Very strange and a problem too if you want to make that second drive removable.

I was never able to resolve the problems I had trying to configure a second drive like that in Linux. My current hope for using a second drive is with a removeable IDE system.

If you would elaborate your situation, I could most likely solve it.

FWIW, my box is mutil-boot: w98, w2k, slack, rh, wxp, temp, temp using ntbootloader.

Certain Windows like 9x and ME can't coexist without special tools. 9x/ME, 2k and XP can coexist peacefully if installed in that order. Linux is fully compatible with its older versions even on the same partition in the same folder /boot.

Linux may be nitpicking, but to me, it's better to be predictable, as I'm a programmer. Windows may be flexible, but it creates problems like rearranging your CD to f:, instead of d:, your c: to e:. Some apps/games won't run until after a reinstall. This doesn't happen to Linux.