SlackwareThis Forum is for the discussion of Slackware Linux.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
well, installers like rh and mandrake if told to automatically partition (or automatically do anything) will lead to strange things. I never ever use automatic utilities (unless you count the kernel itself and devfs)
Exodist is most likely right about the odd assignment of hda numbers (automatic partitioning is a bitch). But anyway... when in cfdisk (following exodist's guidelines!) delete all but Windows partition. You will then have
Windows hda1
Free Space
When you see that, you're good to go. Remember: do *not* delete the Windows partition!
All your partitions (all 4: Windows, swap, Slackware, Mandrake) should be Primary. Nonetheless, whatever it says on the Windows partition line, leave it be. Don't touch the Windows partition!
Windows, Slackware and Mandrake should be Bootable (the "Toggle Boot Flag" option or something like that). The swap partition should be of type 82 (which stands for Linux Swap); Slackware and Mandrake should be of type 83 (which stand for Linux).
You can only have four primaries and the numbers hdX1-4 are reserved for them whether they exist or not. Any extended partition automatically begins numbering its logical volumes at hdX5 and numbers upwards from there. And Mandrake's default install automatically creates an extended partition with three volumes - hdX5-7, as root, swap, and /home. Or did in my brief Mandrake experiment, anyway - even though, since I had only one primary, it could have easily created the three partitions in the three remaining primary slots.
well i screwed up... i cleared the unmounted hda5 cuz [formattd actually] and whne i booted windows it said registry file thing missing.. run scanreg to fix it.. anybody with some windows experience know how i can do that? i have the windows disks but it wont lemme boot from em .. perhaps cuz lilo chooses windows from hd, linux or stuff before that thing has a chance? ..
onion,
You can always make your computer skip the hard drive altogether and boot from a CD by going into the bios (look for a message like "hit del to enter setup" or similar) as soon as it begins to boot. Poke around your bios menus until you see the one for boot sequence, then give your CDrom a higher priority than your hard drive.
yeah GOBY, i understand that but my comp wont lemme into the bios... or at least i dont know how... it says "press tab to display system" or something like that.. and when i do it just SHOWS me my specs and i cant do anything else... no menus, no selecting things.. just.. Mhz, ram, stuff like that.. and then press escape to continue.. and then it contuinues booting... i pressed every single key on my keyboard :-p i think...
See, what is kinda weird is your Windows partition showing up as a device needing mounting (hence the /mnt/windows). Now unless you specifically set things up this way, I don't think your Windows should be showing up as /mnt/windows. Just for reference I shall post my /etc/fstab; I'm running Windows XP and Slackware with a swap partition:
Now obviously I called my Windows partition /fat-c at the configuration of LILO bit during install, so you very well may have (accidentally?) filled in /mnt/windows. But! Perhaps it is worth trying to redo your LILO by running "liloconfig" from the command prompt (once again), and making sure that you both run the "expert" version and that you add the windows partition.
The steps:
- Add new lilo header
- fill in your boot variables (or not; I didn't), pick your frame buffer if desired
- install LILO to the MBR
- fill in "dev/hda" as target location
- choose how long to wait (I have forever, 'cause I like to make my own choices in my own time )
- Add a Linux partition
- fill in "/dev/hda7"
- give it a name (I have "Slackware").
- Add a DOS partition
- fill in "dev/hda1"
- give it a name ("Windows")
- Click "Install LILO"
Realizing you probably didn't need this little directive at all I still didn't delete it 'cause I'm too lazy to type and then delete, however non-sensical my typing was.
-zsejk
P.S.: did you choose to make your Windows partition reachable in Linux during install?
Here is one for ya. Is it possible for 2 or 3 distros to share a /home partition? ie. like sharing a swap. home would have all of the configs and personal files. Just a thought for ya. Thanks
Distribution: Slackware, Windows, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS X
Posts: 5,296
Rep:
onion what ver. of windows are you running? also the quickboot option is probably enabled in the bios. just thinking here, shutdown the machine and unplug it for 10 mins. then power up and try the delete key some bios will let you in after a very cold boot such as the 1 i described. then you will be able to disable quickboot and make the box look at the cd first.
okay thanks guys... yeah i figured out how to get into my bios.. weird thing was.. my F[x] keys on my keyboard werent WORKING!! :-p ... well got that fixed now... by the way zsejk the slack installer is different than the other ones.. in mandrake it automatically does stuff in /mnt .... i deleted my partition that "had the registry" i think but i have slack on it now and its running fine except....
when i try to view windows.... [my etc/fstab is perfectly correct...] in file:/windrive after doing 'mount -a' as root, it shows NOTHING in there.... except 'images' which has a red key on it which doesnt exist when i click on it.... i tried doing control alt f1 to see what the text in the background was and it said... lstat could not open .... [x] a billion times with x being alll the files in my windows partition.. [all i saw was x/y/and z files on the bottom of the list..] .... whats weird is i can still get them with mandrake and my etc/fstab is right and also.. my friend has the same problem.. though he didnt a week before...
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.