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Linking two hard drives, one formatted with Slackware 10.2 the other Windows XP
I have a hard drive with Slackware Linux v10.2 and another with Windows XP Pro. I was wondering if there was any software or a way to allow me to connect my two hard drives without having to reinstall.
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Better explain (further) what you are trying to achieve - then maybe we can help.
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Sorry about being vague. I want to do something like a dual boot, but I wasn't sure if that would be possible to do with two seperate hard drives. Currently I have been opening up my computer and swapping drives each time I need to access either Windows or Linux, and it's becoming moderately frustrating.
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Install lilo to the slackware drive:
Set up lilo.conf to look for your slackware kernel(s) and to look at the windows "partition" I don't have a windows partition/hard drive on this computer so my lilo.conf doesn't have that syntax and I don't want to misinform you... but it's on the site here. Then run lilo. If it doesn't have any errors then reboot and change your bios settings so that the boot setup looks at the slackware drive before the windows drive and it should work. I'm not sure but I would leave the windows drive where it was when you installed it originally... i.e. if it was on primary-master (hda) when you use windows than you should leave the windows drive on primary-master. It's just easier to change slackware's /etc/fstab before you reboot. |
Physically moving the drives in nuts - things break that way.
As suggested, the same can be achieved by changing the BIOS boot disk order. Best solution is to (permanently) change it to allow the Linux disk to boot, than add a windows option. I don't use lilo, but when I did it was simple - a quick search should find it. And yes, the Windows disk should remain as the primary master (i.e. on the actual cable). Be aware that if you ever update XP via a service pack or new version (say Vista), you'll need to change the boot order to have the Windows disk as the boot disk prior to doing the update. After that you can safely swap back to your Linux disk. |
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No, the loader code isn't the problem - the installer looks for windows on the (BIOS) boot disk.
If it doesn't find it, the install fails. If it does work, it re-writes the MBR - so the scenario suggested above avoids problems all round. |
Its even easier with two seperate harddrives. That way you don't even have to worry about resizing partitions. And if either drive is fried you still have one working OS.
Simply fdisk to find out your partition names. And edit lilo.conf boot=/dev/your device name here prompt Then run lilo. Your done. |
bootpart
There are a number of ways to solve this problem. One is to use a little windows program like bootpart (http://members.aol.com/gvollant/bootpart.htm) to boot the Linux partition from Windows. Another is to boot the windows partiton from Linux, which is the best. Another is to boot you Linux partition from a floppy boot disk. Whatever you choose, make sure that only one hard disk drive (the Windows disk) is active.
What I think is best is if you, as suggested, do not change your Windows setup. Keep Windows as your first hard drive. Reinstall Linux on the second hard drive and when setting up the partitions, toggle its active switch to off. There should only be one MBR per computer or you end up having to do a lot of juggling, as you've experienced. After Linux installs, choose to install the bootloader to the master boot record (MBR) of the Windows hard disk if you want Linux to boot both Windows and Linux. If you'd rather play it safe and boot into Windows first, install the bootloader to the root partition of second hard drive and then use either a floppy, or the bootpart program to boot into Linux. Hope this helps, Harry |
Thank you all for the help. I went with the LILO boot loader option. I was also referred to a video and article explaining how to set up the hard drives on a switch. I now have that working along with the boot loader.
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