I'm sorry I it seems like I didn't search the forums first but I couldn't find a thread about dual booting using two hard disks. Or of you know of an exact URL just tell me.

Here's the question. How would I setup a dual boot between WinXP and possibly Slackware using two hard drives. The WinXP drive will probably be the master and the Slack disk the slave. I don't mind whether XP or Slack controls the boot menu. I just don't want to hurt my precious CUSTOMIZED FINALLY data in XP. Keep in mind this will be my first attempt at installing Slackware. I do have experience with RH 7.2 though. Tell me if I left out any required details.

--tarballedtux

when you install whatever linux you decide to go with, durring the install it will ask you if you want to install lilo or grub, and it will detect your windows HD and list it as an option as well as the linux you are installing.

If it's Slack, it may not recognize your windows hd, at least it may not list it as an option anyway. Go ahead and install it, and yes, install lilo as well.

You will want to make sure you don't choose to format /dev/hda at any point. You can choose to add it to your fstab file, but I wouldn't worry too much about that yet, especially if you don't know what you are doing, and don't want to lose data. Just play with /dev/hdb as much as you'd like, and put slack anywhere you want to on there.

During the "configuration" part of the install, it will ask you if you want to install lilo on your own, or if you want Slack to do it all for you.

I would go ahead and let Slack do it all for you, and then afterwards, you can edit lilo by hand, I would guess this to be the easiest way for someone not knowing a whole lot about Lilo's config file, and how to write one.

So after you get through the install, and do your first boot, after you login, using your favorite text editor, add this chunk to your /etc/lilo.conf file:
other = /dev/hda1
table = /dev/hda
label = WinblozeXP

Go ahead and put it at the bottom of the file.

Cool, hope that helps

right, well i guess i'll say my standard piece again....

one thing i ususally recommend is to put windows on the slave channel, and linux on the master. doing this will then mean you'll install lilo on the boot sector of the linux drive and NOT the windows drive, consequently your windows drive will NEVER be even slightly altered by linux, so you can just unplug the drive, put windows back on master and you'd have enver known it was there, 100% worry free. you will probably, unless your install is clever to do it for you, need to alter the lilo.conf file after install to make windows boot tho, but it's worth it. you'll need to add something like...

other=/dev/hdb1
label=windows
table=/dev/hdb
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80

and then re run lilo as root

this just lies to windows about what channel it's on. but as i said the benefit of this is that you NEVER risk anything on the windows drive.

also... http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...apdrive%3D0x80
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...apdrive%3D0x80 and a few other places.

Alright thanks everyone.

No problem

In case you want to know how to set up Grub for 2 hard disk boot here is how I did it.
#
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.7-10 ro root=/dev/hda2 hdb=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.7-10.img
title winxp
map (hd0,0) (hd1,0)
map (hd1,0) (hd0,0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader+1
#
I have linux on primary master, and win xp on secondary master.
I have a cdrw on primary slave. my default boot drive is secondary master. It took me awhile to get this correct, with lilo the drives go in order pri mstr , slave , sec .... hda, hdb, hdc.... but with grub its like it ignores cdroms I don't know I was getting frustrated thinking that my xp drive should have been (hd2,0) but it is actually (hd1,0).
anyways, thought I'd give that info, I personally like the graphical look of grub better than lilo.

I installed Slackware on first try. Yeah!
But a few issues. I noticed when I booted up the boot takes considerably longer when I added the second drive. Is there some sort of hard drives wars where the Primary and Slave are trying to negotiate. LILO does appear but takes a bit.

In the midst of upgrading my power supply I hooked the floppy back up in incorrectly. Now the status light is just solid. I know its from me putting the ribbon cable in wrong bit it doesn't seem to fit any other way. Is the twist supposed to be near the controller or the drive?

--tarballedtux

Alright I fixed the floppy trouble. (Bangs head against wall and flips the connector).

OK but my slick new Slack install is itching to get on-line and be graphically enhanced. First how do I get my Ethernet card to work? I wished I checked before I rebooted to XP and came here, but I don't know if it was detected. I imagine it was because it seems pretty standard. It's a Intel PRO 100/...
It's not some crazy Gorilla brand. Next problem my new AGP GeForce 4 Ti 4200 won't display when I start X. For now all I want is basic functionality. I can work out the better Nvidia drivers later. Any help is appreciated.

--tarballedtux