Dual Booting w/ 2 hd's (win2k[ntfs] on hda, rh on hdb)
 

Hi,

I have win2k already on my computer using NTFS (reinstalling it is not an option). I want to install red hat on a second hard dive and dual boot between the two and I also want to use GRUB.

I have not had success doing this though and I need some help. (I’ve spent the last 3 days scouring the Internet for HowTo etc but none have helped because it seems that most are for dual booting w/ LILO or they have only one hard drive or … something not like my situation.)

Fortunately I have a couple old hard drives so that I can simulate what I must do before I work on my real system.

Q1: Does someone know of a link to a page that will address my specific problem?

If not:
Q2: Can this be done?
Q3: Should I install GRUB to the MBR of the win2k disk?
Q4: Should I keep win2k as the primary drive?

:confused: -AB

Peruse http://www.linux-mag.com/2002-04/guru_01.html and make a decision reflecting your setup

If you really want, you can continue to use Win2K's ntldr and boot.ini as the dual-boot manager. The process for Grub is different from the process used for Lilo only in some minor details.

Install Grub to point to the boot sector (hdb1) of the second hard drive, not the MBR, and let it load your RedHat, only. Then copy the boot sector as a file to Win2K's C: drive and make the appropriate entry in boot.ini.

There's nothing wrong with letting Grub handle both OSes, and it will do the job with no problem at all. Many people dual-boot Win2K and Linux every day with Grub. If you so desire, point Grub to the MBR of your primary hard drive and make sure that Win2K is properly identified (give it a name, and ensure the correct location) when setting up Grub.

Win2k is the primary hd and until now I’ve always been able to fix its MBR whenever something I tried something did not work (and everything I have tried has not worked :)

As the first post indicates I’m trying to dual boot between RH and win2k using grub.

I created a GRUB boot floppy and issued the following commands:

root (hd1,0) <<<< hd1 is the linux drive where /boot/grub/stage1 is located
setup (hd0,0) <<<< I figured “hey, lets put GRUB on the MBR (the win2k-NTFS drive)”


Then I rebooted w/o the floppy. GRUB starts and hangs saying something like Loading Stage1 . . .

So now I’ve got the MBR hosed on the win2k-NTFS drive. No problem I think, just pop in the Win98 boot disk, issue the FDISK /MBR command and reboot.

However, after I reboot it still says GRUB Loading Stage1 . . . and hangs. I tried issuing FDISK /MBR twice now but GRUB won’t go away. Salt usually kills grubs in the garden, what can I do in this case though?

I can't find a solution to fixing the MBR in the above post. So I decided to simply use my production drive (risky but I simply will take care not to write to the MBR)

So here is what I discovered:

I took the win2k-ntfs drive, changed the jumper and made it the slave (hd1) and took the linux drive and made it the master (hd0).

Then I booted from the GRUB floppy (once i find a solution I'll create a grub.conf) and typed the following at the grub> prompt:

map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot


And I got win2k to boot (well sort of). It booted but it seemed a little slow while booting and then it stopped short of displaying the screen where you press "ctrl-alt-del" to enter your password. All that I had was the mouse cursor and a desktop colored screen and nothing else. Pressing "ctrl-alt-del" didn't do anything either. I simply had to turn off my computer.


Alright so here are a few thoughts: on the internet i saw people use root (hd0,0) in place of my rootnoverify (hd1,0) above. First, I can't get it to work without the noverify (which makes sense) and second i need to use (hd1,0) instead of (hd0,0) because when i go to boot it totally hangs w/o getting as far as what I described above. But using (hd1,0) rather than (hd0,0) does not make sense to me because I've mapped the drives around the drives by using the map command.

Jeez this whole dual boot thing is really turning into a pain.
Why is it not possible for me to completely boot win2k-ntfs when it is physically hd1 by using the above commands at the grub> prompt?



:confused: :cry:

Alright, so this really isn’t a dual booting issue after all. My post above indicates that I can boot windows (and I can also boot linux). I thought that when I booted widows it was hanging but in fact it appears that the presence of the Linux partition on the other drive is causing windows to “do something” until it finally gives up.
I’m going to post another thread (win2k Slow booting in presence of Linux partition ) and explain my situation better to see if I can this issue resolved.

Thanks for you help.