2 HDD, XP & Suse(for now), boot loader on each HDD?
 

Hey all,

I'm making my second foray into Linux and have got Suse9.1 Pro installed on my laptop. I don't have *nix installed on my desktop yet, but I'll be doing that soon.

Desktop Setup:

hda - 100GB WD ATA HDD -- old copy of WinXP & old boot drive
--this is the Master on the 1st Channel (P-ATA)
-----Slave on 1st Channel is a DVDRW
--it was my original install of WinXP
--hda1 is an active partition and contains WinXP
--until I installed a new copy of WinXP on my SATA drive, i booted from this drive.

hdb - 200GB WD SATA HDD -- new install of Win XP & boot drive
--this is the Master on the 3rd Channel (SATA)
--this is my new install of WinXP
--hdb1 is an active partition and contains WinXP
--this is the drive I boot from, configured via the BIOS boot device select.

Plans
-I will be installing Linux on hda1

-I will be using the Windows bootloader to dual boot

-What I'm thinking, is that I'd install the Linux bootloader (Grub/Lilo) to the MBR of hda (Linux) so that, if I wanted, I could use hda (Linux) to boot instead of hdb (WinXP).

Questions


-Can I install the Linux bootloader (Grub/Lilo) to the MBR of hda (Linux) without screwing up the MBR of hdb (WinXP)?

-I know that boot.ini on hdb (WinXP) can point to Grub/Lilo installed to the Linux partition (hda1) for dual-booting, but can boot.ini on hdb (WinXP) point to the linux bootloader if it is installed to the MBR of hda (Linux)?

nop windows boot.ini can't be made point to grub in the MBR.

I see a problem to access the bootloader on hdb. AFAIK there is always a bootloader required on the first primary controller to load windows. If there is another Windows on hda, there is no problem, but if there is a Linux bootloader you need to use this to load Windows. That should be not problem (in theory), but I read a lot of reports, that grub get's confused when more than one controller type is used.

I would suggest to have Windows on hda and Linux on hdb if you would like to use the Windows bootloader.

I'm currently booting using the boot.ini on hdb to dual-boot between the 2 copies of XP, but I haven't tried disabling the active partition on hda, yet. That was actually my plan once i get the new XP install customized - delete the old XP on hda1 and install linux to it.

I was hoping to keep an active partition on each drive (hda1 & hdb1) so that I could use either to boot (in the event one fails), and just using the WinXP boot.ini to load XP or Linux via Grub/Lilo in the hda MBR. The first reply pretty much kills that idea, but now I'm worried that if I change hda1 to a non-active partition that I won't be able to boot anything ... more research I guess. :) Any other input is appreciated.

Thanks!