Hi!

I'm wondering where I have to put my boot partition if I have two disks? Should it be in de master, where Windows is installed or in my slave diskdrive?

How do I know for sure that I created a partition in the correct sector. Can someone please try to tell me how to do this with Disk Druid.

Thanks!

You can put your boot partition on either the master or slave drive, the only limitation is that is needs to be below cylinder 1024 on whichever disk. I understand that the very latest version of LILO removes this limitation, however this might not be used with you distro. Just ensure that you write LILO to you MBR and it will be (should be) fine.

Unfortunatly I can't be any help on Disk Druid, not being from the Redhat camp.

Cheers

Jamie...

if you just use two partitions (a native one and a swap) then boot will be put in the right place from the start.

if you really want to have a seperate boot partition then put it first. that should do the trick (look at the sectors bit, make sure that the boot finishes below 1024)

Alex

Im having a similar problem. If I have a 30 gig drive partitioned into 3 equal sized drives with windows installed on teh first drive, how would i go about creating a boot partition before 1024 without formatting and losing all of my data including windows?

Fox2k,

As jharris mentioned above, the key to getting a dual boot system to work while avoiding the 1024 limit is to have LILO write to the MBR (master boot record). If you do that you don't need a boot partition.

During setup you were probably asked if you wanted to write LILO to the MBR or to the first sector of the Linux partition. You need to select "write to the MBR." LILO will then be written there so when you boot it lets you select whether to boot into Lin or Win.

This might cause you to have to reinstall Linux at this point, but shouldn't cause you to have to change the Win partition. At worst, you could try another distro (with a better version of LILO?) and have it rewrite your current Linux partition and then write to the MBR.

BTW, this is operating system #2. If you plan on installing something else into partition #3 (e.g., Win2k), do it BEFORE you reinstall Linux. The MBR with LILO should be written last for it to work.

Alright, i'll try that. thanks for your help!

I tried installing again and i was never asked where to write LILO to. If i were to partitiion my c: into 2 5 gig sections, with windows on the first, wouldi be too far inot teh drive to put the boot partition right after that?

Fox2K,

Unfotunately, I can't answer your last question. It really depends on the geometry of your hard drive (# of heads, cylinders, etc..) which can vary widely between manufacturers.

I noticed from your other post that we're talking about Mandrake 7.0. Mandrake is based on Red Hat. If you were to obtain and use Red Hat, I know for a fact that it will ask you where to write LILO. I've been using it since 5.2, and most recently 7.1. It would be similar and might save you some headaches. Just a thought.

Best of luck.

I solved my problem. I used the full version of partition magic and created a partition out of half of my C drive. I got the warning that it was part the 1024 cylinder but for some reason it worked anyways

so im not complaining. i have Linux working fine now! Thanks for your help abyss

Fox2k,

Kewl! That was a good solution. Enjoy!

thanks

edit above: part = past
lol

alrighty.... heres the problem:
1. windows is installed on a partition
2. there is 30 gigs free for more partitions
3. i made additional partitions in linux, and if i try to add a root or /boot partition i get the following error:
/ Boot Partition > 1024 cylanders.

my HD has 4800 or so cylanders, and i was wondering if there was anyway to get linux to boot using a NON-partitionless installation without having to DESTROY my windows 98 one...

thanks.



BTW i already read 20+webpages without any help, so please give me some info

I had that problem on my old box, its been a while, but if you have linux installed, and itll only boot windows, then ya might want to try using boot magic 6. itll let ya boot past the 1024th cylander if i remember correctly. hopefully someone else can help ya some more, im not positive if im 100% correct as its been a while since i had the problem.

I was having the same problem (<1024 cylinders) when I was installing Red Hat for the first time (ever). I was lost for some time. But then I checked the install manual at redhat.com and followed their directions to a T. It works! They are

\ = all you want
\boot = 32MB
Sway = 2x your RAM installed Min size = 32MB Max size 128MB.

http://www.redhat.com/support/manual...DE-RECOMMENDED

Then everything installed just fine. The install never did ask about LILO.

I do have a problem and could use some help. I am also using Windows XP on the same drive (10GB for WXP/10GB for Linux) and when I boot the system up the only option I have is Linux.

If I use fdisk and delete the Linux partitions and run fdisk /mbr, Windows XP will once again boot. I also have a 2nd HD with Windows Professional installed. I change the boot drive in my BIOS to select which drive I will be booting from. This also sucks.

I want to boot with just one boot manager for all three OS's and I don't want to purchase a boot manager. So what else is out there for me to use or how should I set things up?

This is the first time I have ever installed Linux. Guess what, I like it! however, I do have many stupid/silly/newbie questions but I will save them for later.

Good Luck

http://www.redhat.com/support/manuals/RHL-7.1-Manual/install-guide/s1-guimode-partitioning.html#S2-GUIMODE-RECOMMENDED

True_500,

Lilo versions 21.3 and greater do not have the 1024 cylinder limitation, and as far as I know, Grub never did. Both can boot other OSs; with lilo you just have to modify your /etc/lilo.conf file. Give the Multi-OS HOWTO a read, especially sections 6.1 - 6.3.