Hi, I have just installed a new second hard drive and I can't access the installed operating systems on it.

On my first hard drive I have XP and pclinuxOS 9.2 I can access these no problem and I have a boot loader for doing it.

On the second drive is windows XP and another pclinuxOS but the boot loader doesnt load them. they are there as I can see them in windows and can access XP from inside windows.

I have done this a few years ago by editing boot/grub/menu.list in kate but can't remember how? and is it different for lilo?

I have put pclinuxOS on the second drive but want to install Alinux but the install procedure was a bit complicated and I never got that far. any help on this is appreciated, thanks Adrian
hope I made sense

1024 mb ram
2 x 80 gb hard drives
both ntfs

Well...you have to edit the configuration file for whatever bootloader you are using--Yes, it is different for GRUB and LILO.

I am assuming that on you first drive, you installed a bootloader with PCLinux. Boot into PCLinux and look in the /boot directory. You should see a folder for GRUB or LILO. With GRUB--as you mentioned--the config filename is "menu.lst". Open this file and you will see the configuration settings. All you need to do is add the information for the OSes on the second drive.

To see where things are on the second drive, you can use fdisk. For example, if you have the two drives on a normal ide bus, then they will be /dev/hda and /dev/hdb. So do "fdisk /dev/hdb" to see all the partitions there.

Note the numbering system used by GRUB starts at "0". Here are some typical GRUB menu.lst entries:

Here is how to read the first one:
GRUB, go to the 3rd HD, first partition. There you will find a kernel named "vmlinuz" in the "/" directory. Boot this with a command-line argument that tells the kernel that its file system is rooted at the 3rd HD, first partition.
Also, you will find the initrd image in "/"--it is named initrd.img

Note that "vmlinuz" and "initrd.img" in this example are acually soft links to the real file names. This make it easier to set up the config file.

Hi pixellany thanks for reply, I'm a little lost though, I typed in to a console: kate /boot/grub/menu.lst and kate opened but it was blank. I know pclinux is lilo but I can't find a file of that name

this is what I got from fdisk:
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk

Usage: fdisk [-l] [-b SSZ] [-u] device
E.g.: fdisk /dev/hda (for the first IDE disk)
or: fdisk /dev/sdc (for the third SCSI disk)
or: fdisk /dev/eda (for the first PS/2 ESDI drive)
or: fdisk /dev/rd/c0d0 or: fdisk /dev/ida/c0d0 (for RAID devices)
...
[root@localhost ~]#

I can't open files in the /Boot/ folder when I click on them to open it says "saving this file will corrupt it" and they seem to be binary files that I can't read.

sorry if that's all a bit confusing,Adrian

Hi this is what I got from Kate /etc/lilo.conf, I need to add another win xp and alinux, can you tell me how? The entry "label="windows_devhdb1" is one I added in control pannel but it just takes me to the windows I have on hda thanks Adrian

# File generated by DrakX/drakboot
# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file

default="win_c"
boot=/dev/hdb
map=/boot/map
keytable=/boot/livecd.klt
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
disk=/dev/hdb bios=0x80
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-oci6.mdk-i586-up-1GB
label="pclinuxos"
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.12-oci6.mdk-i586-up-1GB.img
append="noapic nolapic nomce psmouse.proto=imps splash=silent"
vga=788
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
label="win_c"
other=/dev/hdb1

other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"

Some people here will say get rid of LILO and install GRUB.
I will only say get a copy of the LILO manual. If you look at your config file long enough you can figure out how to edit it for another OS, but it will be easier with the manual....

Ok, I made no headway with lilo I installed Grub but it still was beyond me, so I installed Suse 10.1 as I know it had GRUB as default. recap; I have two hard drives, the first has Suse and xp and the second has XP and I want to put another linux distro on it.

The suse boot loader has listed the 3 operating systems but both the xp titles boot into the same xp.
this is what I got from Kate:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Tue Jul 25 12:35:46 BST 2006

color white/blue black/light-gray
default
timeout 30
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title SUSE Linux 10.1
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 vga=0x317 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###

title windows 1
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 2###

title windows 2
chainloader (hd1,0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
title Floppy
chainloader (fd0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- SUSE Linux 10.1
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off 3
initrd /boot/initrd

and this is what my computer can see in Suse:

Disk Information
Device
Filesystem
Total space
Available space
Floppy Drive
auto
7.50 GB

aaria5
ntfs
56.01 GB
17.61 GB
8.1G Media
reiserfs
7.50 GB
5.30 GB
11G Media
reiserfs
11.08 GB
11.05 GB
62G Media
ntfs
58.63 GB
55.13 GB
19G Media
ext2

both my drives are on the same ide cable is that ok? one is set to master and the other to cable select, I also have a DVD burner and a DVD drive on another cable.
thanks for any help on this, Adrian

Hi this is what I have so far, I have xp and suse on my first hard drive and xp and pclinuxos on my second, I have worked out the way to get pclinux but can't seem to get the xp booted from the menu title. its listed as windows F



# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Tue Jul 25 23:45:03 BST 2006

color white/blue black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title SUSE Linux 10.1
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 vga=0x317 resume=/dev/hda5 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###

title windows 1
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 2###

title windows F
chainloader root (hd0,5)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb5 vga=0x317 resume=/dev/hda5 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd


###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
title Floppy
chainloader (fd0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- SUSE Linux 10.1
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off 3
initrd /boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title PclinuxOS
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb5 vga=0x317 resume=/dev/hda5 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd


this is fdisk:

linux-0tdc:~ # fdisk

Usage: fdisk [-l] [-b SSZ] [-u] device
E.g.: fdisk /dev/hda (for the first IDE disk)
or: fdisk /dev/sdc (for the third SCSI disk)
or: fdisk /dev/eda (for the first PS/2 ESDI drive)
or: fdisk /dev/rd/c0d0 or: fdisk /dev/ida/c0d0 (for RAID devices)
...
linux-0tdc:~ #

Hi anyone who needs to install 2 OSs on a 2nd drive with Grub, this is the answer I got this from linuxforum.org

title windows F
map (hd0,0) (hd1,0)
map (hd1,0) (hd0,0)
root (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

thanks for help, Adrian