I know this has been discussed before, but I cannot seem to decipher what it is all about. Here is my configuration need, and how far I have gotten, plain and simple:

The machine is a Dell C840 with a 60GB primary drive and a 40GB modular (secondary) drive. My intent was Red Hat WS on the secondary drive, but without GRUB in the MBR, as I wanted to be able to remove the secondary drive when needed, and still be able to boot Windows XP.

So, I run through a standard install of the retail RH9, on the secondary drive. I do an advanced bootloader config, and install GRUB on the secondary drive in the boot partition. According to my reading, this was the way to go. Using this route, I got no hardware boot incompatibility warning, so I assumed that GRUB would load from here using the BIOS drive boot select utility.

I was wrong. When selecting the secondary drive for boot, from BIOS, I get a "GRUB" in the top left corner, and a spinning drive (which obviously can't find the boot sector).

Then I read in this and other forums that the Windows bootloader is actually loading instead of GRUB, and I need to link the XP bootloader to GRUB, then it will run. I have seen some examples for LILO, but I am not afraid to say it all sounds like Latin to this newbie.

I was never warned during the RH9 install to create a boot disk, or anything else. Now I have RH9 installed, and can't get it up, let alone figure out how to get this or that file onto the root of my WinXP drive, and/or mod the boot.ini file (which I do know how to do, if someone would just tell me what to type in there).

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

BB

you should install grub to the MBR of the second drive to boot like you are describing.

can you boot from your install cd?

I have an install CD, but booting the drive from it will require some assistance. My boot is /dev/hdc1/.

Will your suggestion keep my Windows bootloader intact and unharmed?

Do I need to remove the other hard drive prior to doing this reinstall?

If so, let me know what to do. I have all my disks in front of me right now.

Cheers.

yes, windows is safe.

when your install cd boots, what is the first thing it stops at?

I'm looking for a prompt to pass additional parameters to the kernel.

does it have such a thing?

I get the original install screen #1, and the prompt is "boot:"

at that prompt, type:
this will either boot you to your completed installation, a good thing(TM)
or else give you an error like "invalid image [tab for a list]"
if it does error, look at the list and insert an image name:

if that works, you should be able to set up grub properly

I got a different message:

Could not find kernel image: mount

No list available, and prompt is back to boot:

I am now in Linux Rescue.

Nevermind that, which got me no where.

OK, what is the next stage? (it's been a long time since RH for me)

I tried going in there. It asked me if I wanted to mount, which I said yes to. Then I got a prompt I have not seen before....something like SB#-.05:, so I shut it down again.

Confirming.

I am sitting at at prompt

sh-2.05b#

Maybe. you shouldn't have to pull the drive, just make sure you install to the MBR of the drive you have your installation on- not /dev/hda or hd0,0

if you are adventurous, check out this web page from Red Hat It does a better job than I could

basically, you need it edit /etc/grub.conf to boot your linux drive, and then install to the MBR of that drive. Then when you switch boot devices in BIOS, it should work.

it looks like you can mount your filesystem from the boot prompt by typing:

linux root=/dev/(where ever you installed)

The Red Hat install would not give me the option to install the GRUB into the MBR of the secondary drive. It gave me option of MBR of other drive, or boot partition of secondary drive.

Does one have to create an mbr during install? I was under the impression that /boot was the proper sector.

nope, MBR's already there.

Depending on the partition scheme of RH, /boot is either just a directory, or at most a seperate partition.. The actual bootloader, grub, is installed to the MBR.

The file that tells grub how to act is /etc/grub.conf

You should be able to start anaconda from the sh: prompt, that's the setup program and at least make a boot floppy.

You can look here for an excellent guide to grub.