Win2k/RH 7.3 dual boot mess
 

Alright guys. I know you've probably seen 'Dual Boot' threads a million times, but this is probably different than the normal "how do I do it". Two days ago I was running Windows 2000 on a single 40GB partition with another 40GB partition on another drive. I split the first drive into two 20GB partitions and decided to load RH7.3. I failed to note that you cannot install the Linux boot loader to the MBR if you're wanting to dual boot, especially if it's on another partition, x number of bytes away or it won't work as an MBR. I could boot into RH fine initially, without the option to boot into 2K as I had origninally thought. That's because the way I selected to install RH overwrote the existing MBR. I know now that I needed to select 'First Sector of Boot Partition'. I wasn't aware at the time, as I didn't read the documentation well. I tried reinstalling, using the 'First Sector of Boot Partition' with LILO, and I get "GRUB _" with the cursor blinking every time I try to boot. I can use the emergency floppy installed with linux that tells it to boot to /dev/hde2 and can get into RH fine. My question is, is there anyway to edit the 'MBR' so I can access GRUB and therefor boot into 2K, after overrighting it? I have no problem reinstalling everything and setting it up correctly, besides the fact that Visual Studio.NET is sitting on C:\ taking up 8GB of space. I can move it to my D:\ but I don't know how to mount it in RH. How do I figure out what the name of the drive is (/dev/hdxy) and how can I mount it manually during bootup so that I can transfer those visual studio.net files to my other drive? /me shakes fingers vigoriously. Both of the 2K partitions are NTFS if that helps. Thanks a ton.

IntaKe

If you want to start over with the linux install run a win 95 boot disk or something that has fdisk and run fdisk /MBR


windows should boot then.


So you then would want to do whatever you need to do with the windows partitions, including defrag and resize or maybe just back up some data. then install linux. When you had linux running but not windows you needed to setup grub or lilo to allow you to boot into windows.

Thanks, I'll try that and repost on my status. Your help is extremely appreciated. :D

I'm writing this message from Windows 2000. Thanks a ton. :) I removed GRUB totally from my RH system trying to fix this. How would I go about reinstalling it without reinstalling RH?

Try here http://www.lincezone.com/linux/dualboot.htm

I haven't seen the install program for Red Hat 7.3 yet, but in the install in 7.2 you can choose the UPGRADE option, then setup your bootloader there, have it install to either the MBR or whatnot, then select a small package to install, or don't install anything at all for that matter, I don't think it really matters. The boot loader should be loaded to where you want it to be, and it should work just fine.

I tri boot win2k and RH7.3 and RH7.2. Win2k and RH7.3 on a 40 gig drive, and 7.2 on a 3gig drive. I havnt had any problems booting RH7.3, its installed on the last 10gig of a 40gig drive, lilo is installed to the MBR of the 40gig drive. Lilo should work fine if installed to the MBR. Heres how my drives are layed out:

/dev/hda1 = win2k c: 20gig primary fat32
/dev/hda5 = win2k d: 10gig extended fat32
/dev/hda6 = RH7.3 / 10gig extended ext3
/dev/hda7 = RH7.3 swap
/dev/hdb1 = RH7.2 / 2.7gig primary ext3
/dev/hdb2 = RH7.2 Swap

I could have used the same swap space for both 7.2 and 7.3