Hi,

I have a desktop PC with 2 Seagate HDDs, 1st=20Gb & 2nd=60Gb, and until last weekend had Windows on the first disk, with Mandrake 9.2 & Fedora Core 1 on the second. No problems. I used the FC1 grub bootloader and it booted everything from /dev/hdb.

When I went to reinstall everything from scratch, windows installed fine and booted from /dev/hda, but when I installed FC1 on the second drive I could only get it to boot from the floppy, it wouldn't boot from /dev/hdb. I had set the BIOS to boot from /dev/hdb (as it was in the "old days"), but neither GRUB nor LILO will boot the kernel. I just get "GRUB" or "LI" message respectively. I think the partition table geometry is not correct, bu8t I don't know what is "correct".

I have read many how-to's (of which many are a bit dated and talk about partitioning schemes for the 2Gb disks of the day), and searched through many forums such as the mighty LQ, and have tried various ways of doing things including installing the bootloader to the first or second disk, making a /boot partition at the beginning of the secon HDD, many reinstalls etc, but it just don't work!

One thing though, I used the Seagate Disk Wizard to clean and format the drives, and I suspect that this MAY have something to do with it, but I am not sure. When I install FC1 I make new partitions and format those as etx3...

So, I would like to know how I should setup and partition my 2nd disk from scratch, so that the partition table geometry is OK and GRUB/LILO will work. Remember it is a 60Gb disk.

Q. I want to boot everything from GRUB or LILO on /dev/hdb, or would I be better off telling it during the install to boot from the MBR on /dev/hda? Would that not overwrite/destroy the Windows boot record? Or is it OK to install GRUB on the MBR of the first disk and be able to boot into both FC1 & wnidows.

Q. Should I make a separate /boot partition at the beginning of the disk (and if so, how big - would 10Mb do the trick?)

Q. I don't fully understand how BIOS limitations on large disks work, so what would be recommended partitions & sizes on the big 60Gb disk? I would also like to keep about 30-35Gb as storage space.

Lot's of questions, I know, but I would be very very happy if a kindly passing Linux guru could assist, I hate booting from a floppy...

thanks a mil,

jdw (minus a lot of sleep and hair this week)

In lilo, are you telling to boot from /dev/hda or /dev/hda1 <--- / or /boot. Post your /etc/lilo.conf.

Hi,

You are on the right track, I installed the bootloader on /dev/hda instead of the second disk, works fine now...I didn't realise that you need to boot from the first physical disk...

cheers,

jdw

Happy to see it working.