Dual boot problem
 

Hi...
I have 2 hard drives : hda with WindowsXP
hdb with Redhat 9.0

Currently I'm using lilo to boot (but I already tried Grub)...
When I start to boot my bootloader freezes...

Here is a copy of my /etc/lilo.cong:

prompt
timeout=50
default=WindowsXP
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
linear

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8
label=RedHat9
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img
read-only
append="hdc=ide-scsi root=LABEL=/"

other=/dev/hda1
optional
label=WindowsXP


Any suggestions?
Did I forget to give any other necessary information?
I would love some help :)
Thanks in advance
:newbie:

I don't know much about twin disc dual boot - I dual boot on a single disc (120 gig's), but the reference to redhat mentions hdc, not hdb. Is it worth correcting that to read hdb? At least you know what you have changed, and can always revert.

I'll go and have a look at my lilo.conf and see what it says


<edit>
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="XP"
keytable=/boot/uk.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="mandrake"
root=/dev/hda3
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hda3
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hda3
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe devfs=nomount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
label="XP"
table=/dev/hda
other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe

well, from that lot, I don't know if there is anything that could help?

</edit>

regards

John

No, sorry, all I can suggest is to do a "dual boot search" here at LQ and look for stuff that mentions twin hard disc's.

It's a problem that I have seen often, so there SHOULD, be something that can point you in the right direction.

Just not me (too many differences between my lilo.conf and yours to beable to "pick the bones out of it" and change it)

sorry.

regards

John

Oh well...
 

Thanks anyway:)
I did try to do search here at LQ but I didn't see anything that could help me... I could be wrong though...
Still hoping to receive sugestions from anyone :D
veraMOB

Hi VeraMob

What's the very last thing you see on the screen as it freezes?

What size is your hard drive?

Which order did you install the 2 OS's in?

Have you actually manually added anything to your lilo.conf file at any time or altered it at all?

Hi
 

Well this has been happening for a while...
When I use grub I see : GRUB READ ERROR
GRUB HARD DISK ERROR; then it freezes
When i use lilo i see: L; or Li; then it freezes...
This doesn't always happen when I turn on my computer... only when it's in a bad mood
:(
I installed first Windows XP on my 60 Gb hard disk: hda
then Redhat on my 40 Gb hard disk hdb ...
my partitions in hdb are: 98.7MB /boot ; 35.6GB for / and ~1GB for swap;

Since I'm a newbie in all this I didn't touch my *.conf files....

Yesterday I reinstalled RedHat 9.0 again and up to now I've been able to boot fine...

but I suspect that as before this little heaven won't last long...

my new grub.conf file is:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd1,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title WindowsXP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1


See anything strange or can I be hopefull that this time I won't have any problems?...
Thanks
:)

looks good!

i see no errors, and it goes along with all the info you've given

Guess what
 

This morning when I turned on the computer I recieved the magnificent GRUB READ ERROR...
well it was good as long as it lasted ... ~2 days
a friend told me that it could have something to do with my boot partition... does that make any sense?
all I know about my boot partition is that it has ~2.4% non-contiguos (did I spell that right?)
This is really irritating... I always have to use a boot disk to start the darn computer when it´s in a bad mood :(
Well thanks :)
veraMOB

give up on windows. Go pure linux. that is what I did, makes you work for computer time. The only problem is that most games will not work on Linux, but I have said good bye to gaming.