/boot partition
 

I just found this forum....looks absolutely great.

The problem I have is this. I just installed RH 8.0. Also have XP installed (which I'm not totally impressed with btw). I thought I installed GRUB and now when I start the box it goes directly into XP. Now, when I run GRUB from a terminal, and try to configure it, it tells me that I haven't installed a boot partition. Now I am new and before someone rips on me, let me admit I know nothing!!! So, if someone can steer me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it and a very large mug of beer goes to you! I know I can just re-install RH, but I'd rather learn something here.

Thanks everyone!

Freestone

first of wall a can give you some hints about lilo not grub(i don't like it)

so, let's say you have installed XP and you want to install RH as the second system.

what is the size of harddisk?

if the harddisk is bigger (`20G let's say ) you must creat the root partition (/)
before 1024 cylinder or create only /boot partition (50M) the same before
1024 cylinder

you must remember /dev/hdax partitions that you have created to set up the
the boot manager (lilo) and the /dev/hday where resides XP

if it is clear Good luck!

A few more tips:

You really don't need the /boot partition, since grub never need it to run (if you install the stage1 in the MBR) and newer versions of lilo don't need it too. It was necessary because the loader can't reach cyclinders above the 1024, like barbanero just said..

If you have access to your system with a boot disk, you can reinstall your bootloader, but before install hin it's a good idea to clean then first:
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdx bs=512 count=1

With Grub you must to know the number of the partition that the data is, the first number is the number of the hd ( primary master -> 0 ), and the second is the number of the partition. Ex: hda1 => hd0,0; hdb2 => hd1,1

# /usr/sbin/grub
grub> install (hdX,X)/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hdX,X)/grub/stage2 0x8000 (hdX,X)/grub/menu.lst
grub> quit

With lilo is simpler:
# /sbin/lilo

Hope that helps ...

Both grub and lilo support having the /boot partition beyond the 1024 cylinder. You just have to turn on that option. Grub has this feature built in. Lilo requires the option. Check the lilo man page...

But then again, like vladkrack said, you do not even need the boot partition...

-Leif

also note, if your going to create a patition use partition majic, do not use the fdisk that is on the win boot disk, (took me ahwile to fig that one out)

hang on, this might solve all my problems... I have RH8 and installed grub to mbr - does this mean I can just delete my /boot partition and everything will still be OK?

Nop! It is a bad idea!

If your grub is in mbr, to clear the mbr you must boot with a boot disk in DOS and give the command fdisk/mbr

will clean all data write in mbr

i want to keep dual-booting with rh8/xp - i just want to reclaim the partition if its not being used - still a bad idea?

Only the stage1 it's in the MBR, then it points to stage2, that its's in disk. You can clean the MBR without the DOS bootdisk, using the dd like I posted earlier.

You can remove that partition, but first you will need the data, try to mount your /boot partition elsewhere:

# umount /boot
# mkdir /tmp/boot
# mount /dev/hdx /tmp/boot
# cp -av /tmp/boot/* /boot

You will have to remove from /etc/fstab the line that mounts the partition /boot, edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst in order to reflect your actual situation in partition scheme, then reinstall grub to make it work properly with the lines that I posted earlier too.

Hope that helps...

mechatron, there are three ways to set up your dual boot system. Here is a simple tech sheet from Red Hat that explains each and how to make them work.

http://www.redhat.com/advice/tips/dualboot.html