Problems Dual Booting

technerd · 11-24-2003, 06:00 AM

I partitoned everything just fine but after the install I noticed that windows was not an option at the boot screen. I went into partioner and it shows the partiton as being there but I can't figure out how to get into it. Do I need to just format and start over? Windows XP/Suse 9.0

Technerd

guygriffiths · 11-24-2003, 07:38 AM

What bootloader are you using? You may need to add Windows to it. Have a search throught the forums, since an almost identical post was made about a week ago.

aaa · 11-24-2003, 07:43 AM

What bootloader are you using (grub or lilo)? You need to add an entry in the bootloaders configuration file for Windows. For lilo, add this to the /etc/lilo.conf file (as root of course, w/ any text editor):

Code:

other=/dev/hda1 #Here it is assumed that Windows is on hda1
        label="WindowsXP"
        table=/dev/hda

Run lilo as root to apply changes.
For GRUB:
Snoop around in the /boot directory for the menu.lst file (that's an L in lst). I think it's /boot/grub/menu.lst for SuSE, but I'm not sure. Once you find the file, add this:

Code:

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0) #Once again, assuming hda1 (in grubeese). 'rootnoverify' is for filesystems not recognized by GRUB, like NTFS
chainloader +1 # With a space before the +
boot

No need to run anything to apply changes in GRUB.
To 'get into' the partition from Linux to look at stuff, you mount it (as root for now), using the mount command. This assumes that the Win partition is hda1, and that there is a folder called /mnt/hd. Enter the command in a terminal or in the 'Run Command' dialog in KDE. Terminals are better because you get to see what's going on (like if there's not /mnt/hd).
For FAT32:
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hd -t vfat
For NTFS:
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hd -t ntfs -o ro
Note the 'ro' for read-only. Linux doesn't write to NTFS well.
Look in /mnt/hd for your Windows stuff.

technerd · 11-24-2003, 08:13 AM

Thanks I will try that.

Technerd