I installed Slackware 9.1 this afternoon (works great), but I can't boot to Windows XP from LILO, I choose it and it says "Loading DOS" and never goes anywhere.

1 - How can I get to my Windows partition (short of unplugging the Master HD)?
2 - Do I have to use NTFS and will it mess up my linux install (fstab is set to mount windows automatically)?
3 - Should I install LILO somewhere besides the MBR? (If so how do I remove the mbr?)

What I Did
I installed LILO to the MBR (only way i could figure out to overwrite Mandrake's LILO), with the simple install option.

I have 2 hard drives

hda - 20 gb Linux
hda1 / 4gb reiserFS
hda5 swap
hda6 /usr/local 4gb reiserFS
hda7 /home ~11gb resierFS

hdb - 8 gb Windows XP
7gb for Windows - FAT32
1gb for docs/etc - FAT32

/etc/lilo.conf:

boot="/dev/hda"
lba32
prompt
timeout="150"
root=/dev/hda1
vga="773"

image="/boot/vmlinuz"
label="Linux"
root="/dev/hda1"
read-only

other=/dev/hdb1
label="NT"
image="/dev/hdb1"
root="/dev/hda1"


I only have games on the Windows HD, so I can lose it, I'd just rather not install everything over again. I have been reading some other posts and am confused, they are talking about using NTFS and configuring options in windows (which I can't get to). Mandrake & Redhat both used LILO and everything worked, unfortuantly I didn't copy the file.

Thanks in advance

Mine looks like this:

try this, since it is most likely your problem

swap both drives, ie make the win drive the master and the lin drive the secondary(or slave) then the windows drive will be hda and the linux drive will be hdb, you'll have to edit lilo, and fstab..

ONLY try this if you did one of the following.
A had windows installed, put in another harddrive as master, making the windows drive secondary
B had lin installed on the primary and added a windows drive as second..

what did you do when the win install stopped working? (i'm assuming installed lin.)

other=/dev/hdb1
label="NT"
image="/dev/hdb1"
root="/dev/hda1" *** < -- where did you find this line at? it shouldn't be there..

I agree with miaviator. Windows pretty much insists on being located in the first partition of the first drive (ie, /dev/hda1) Thus, I have always installed Windows first on my dual boot machines, which results in exactly the situation I described (Win in /dev/hda1) FWIW, I have never been able to successfully install Linux first and then Windows, precisely because of this MBR issue.

If you do decide to reverse the drives, and make the corresponding changes in lilo, as miaviator suggests, I would bet it would work. Furthermore, you indicate that you've got the line "root = /dev/hda1" in between the "timeout" and "vga" lines. I'd remove it, as I'm not sure what purpose it serves.

miaviator - hey man just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to you and all your colleagues stationed overseas. You guys (and gals) are the BEST and you all totally have the support of the USA. -- J.W.

Yes all versions of Windows must be on thr first aprtition of the first drive. On dual-boot machines I always install lilo to a floppy. it's not elegant but it sure avoids lots of problems. Not only can you ruin a Win install by overwriting the MBR. The Windows setup program sometimes is unable to complete program installation (when it must reboot) if lilo or other boot loaders interrupt the process. It's a good idea to backup bootsector.bin just in case you have problems, but if you're installed to ntfs, you'll still need the repair console or PDE in order to complete the repair. If you ever need or get the chance to reinstall win/NT/XP/W2K the best thing is to create a small (2-10MB min.) first (/boot) partition with FAT file system. Then whenever you have problems you can take any DOS bootdisk and go in and do repairs.

I apologize for cutting in, but I gave up Windows and went totally Linux, but now I bought a brand new Lexmark All in One Printer/etc.., but cannot use it in my mdk9.2. As such; I want to put a very small Windows Partition on my computer without removing mdk and reinstalling, adn all that stuff all over again.

So, I understand that it is very difficult and SELDOM or NEVER works, but I need to knwo what is truly specific. CAN IT WORK? Is there a way to literally put Windows on after Linux and make it work? Please let me know if it is a truly impossible venture. I have win98, 2000, me, and xp pro. Which one can be made to work or are all of them useless unless I remove linux and change my computer to a Windows computer and reinstall linux that way?

Please help

Alas it's true. this is one of the ways Bill Gates tried to absolutely dominate things. Windows must own the first partition on the first drive or No Windows. As you surely know win/NT/XPW2K will let you boot multiple versions located on various partitions, but onyl if it has ntldr in the boot sector. I once looked into the possibility of making a win98 'live' CD- possibly altering msdos.sys (the lines windir=XXX), etc., but better men than I have tried and failed. The problem is that during boot windows writes to the hard disk. BY using xcopy or something similar you might get close, by cloning an already installed system to another partition, but win always figures out that it's not in C: and panics. Only way is to install win first, sorry. I run this way. I'm not so fanatic at hating windows or gates. I paid once for my win98 install disk and have installed it a few hundred times for myself, since my priorities often change. I have a small disk and so repartition as necessary and reinstall. I do still use win98 for some things where it's easier. It seems to have outlived the virus problem- few viruses that affect it by now. I have a nice consolation system, though. On my windows desktop I have a shortcut called 'KILL BILL', which is a shortcut to loadlin! I love to click that and watch win go to a black(not blue) screen and then boot Slackware. In fact I sometimes let win boot just for the pleasure of using 'KILL BILL'! Lately, I've been using a ZipSlack based install(140MB) with X, windowmaker, Opera, ROX-Filer, etc. It's actually quite handy for those reinstall, i just boot into windows, make a self-extracting ZIP od my whole Linux folder and butn to CD. Then, after re-partitioning and installing win, I just unzip it and in about three minutes have Slack up and running without having lost any e-mail or favorites or history... I keep a more complete Slack system around somewhere, but really just for compiling and heavier stuff. It's really quite elegant to be able to zip the whole thing and never lose any configs or mail!
See my HOWTO (still being edited daily)PHOENIX HOWTO

Windows doesn't have to have anything to do with the first partition or ntldr. I have W2K on hdb1 with LILO in the MBR on one box and WinXP on hda2 with LILO on the MBR on another. It's been awhile, but I'm almost positive I've installed either DOS 6.22 or Windows 95 after Linux and just had to reboot with a bootdisk and rerun LILO. Win98 is slightly different and NT are very different beasts, but the principle of overwriting and 're-overwriting' boot sectors may hold. Not recommended, I guarantee no results, but where this idea about ntldr and hda1 and whatnot comes from, I dunno. Sure, that's the easiest and least likely to go wrong, but it's *not* the only way. But, yeah, installing Windows second is a different issue from just having Windows boot from weird places.

Ok, if I understand you correctly you are saying it can be done. Well, I am still a bit new tto this stuff, love the stability of Linux, but truly do want to use my priinter/copier/scanner/fax so could you please walk me through exactly how I do that stuff you spoke of? At the same time, perhaps you can also tell me which Windows is best for the installation of a functional Windows after or on top of Linux.

I know I need to cut a small partiton out of Linux to use for Windows (Linux has my entier 20 gig hd and I wish it had some kind of defrag) and I am just trying to figure how to copy everything I have sequentially onto cd's in such a way to easily copy them back and have linux work as if it never left. That is another issue I am dealling with adn if I cannto do that I cannot cut out the small partiton for windows.

So if you know how to put a functional windows on a linux computer without damaging linux (as I think you stated) please help me with the easiest (simplest) possible instruction.

I APPRECIATE ALL YOU HELP!


MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!

I can't walk you through it, actually. The goofy placement issue is different from yours and the reverse install order, which does relate to what you were wanting to do, was awhile ago. IIRC, I simply had a normal Linux but already had the partition for DOS/Win and installed it. That slagged the boot sector, naturally enough, but I used a boot disk to reboot the Linux system and just reran LILO. I may be misremembering, but I think that's what happened.

As far as resizing an existing Linux partition (or set of them) - around the same period I used parted to good effect ( http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/parted.html ) but again, there are details and gotchas I don't recall. Like I think one end of the partition has to stay fixed and you have to resize from the other end.

If you're going to be doing a full backup anyway, it might just be easier to redo the whole thing. As I say, then you can repartition the disk, install Windows first, restore your backup files, reboot with a bootdisk and change lilo.conf to boot from what would then probably be hda2 and edit fstab the same way. Then it should boot normally.

As far as which DOS/Win to use, I would figure your printer comes with a Windows disk that would be targeted at a particular version or range of versions so that would naturally be the one you'd want. If you don't have manufacturer's drivers and are betting on Windows having a driver ready-to-use then I'd guess you'd need a Windows newer, but not significantly newer, than your printer. Enough time for Windows to have a driver and not so much time that they've already discontinued it. But that's an iffy prospect regardless.

And Win98 (at least) doesn't like extended partitions. I remember - I think it was Crashed_Again - having issues with a Win98 in an extended. So that's something to watch out for. And NT is a pain generally - if this is solely for a printer and you're going to be needing files accessible both ways, you might as well use Win95 or something, if it would support the software. I am not a guru so I can't help you out like one - I was more pointing out that there probably *was* some guru who could help you out and not to rule out options prematurely.

Geez. Sorry about the long unhelpful post.

No problem with you saying a lot. I say way too much often enough.

However, you have helped me some by giving me a bit of faith in my logical assumtion that it could be done. Of course, the experimental part of me wants to do it the hard way, but the less tressful part of me wants to do the back up and erase routine. Sometimes it is almost an agonizing split personality.

That said, I cannot find the darn program that is supposed to help me copy the entire linux set up onto cd's sequentially without screwing any directories. I saw such a program but now that I need it I cannot find it and it is literally supposed to burn the cd's in a way that when one is done loading it will ask for the next one just like the installation cd's for Linux.
(a bit of repeating myself)

Anyway, I really could use some help from you or anayone that knows what progam I am speaking of and where I will find it. Then I can safely copy everything and just start over with very little hassle.

Can you or anyone help me?? .

I'm not sure what you had in mind - there's this: http://www.partimage.org/ and several others as well as the proprietary stuff, of course but they may or may not do all you want.

Please forgive my linux or outright computer/programming ignorance, however, can you remember when we used to get all of our software on floppies? We would have as many as 15 floppies for one program and sometimes even more. Those floppies were linked to each other in sequence. You could not install any of the programs out of order and if you damaged one floppy you were really screwed (happened to me).

Well the point of my interest is to be able to do the same thing with cds. The only problem is that I had a difficult time doing it with floppies adn by the time I thought I might have figured it out the cds came along. So now I forgot what I knew! However, I did see a program listed somewhere in this linux jungle and it stated being for exactly what I now need, but I now cannot find the darn program.

This is the preferred plan: I want to be able to copy the entire linux installation, including all the added programs, files, graphics, etc.. onto cds so that I can put everything back exactly - as it now is - after I remove it and install windows.

MDK 9.2 has a back up program but it does not copy everything it only copies system files. So if I erase linux to install winodws and then reinstall linux followed by using the back up I will only hav ethe system back where it was, but will have to reestablish all my graphics, and any other out of the ordinary added files which takes more time I am trying to save.

Now my assumption could be in serious error, I am a , but I truly can not see how the back up I did last night that only used one cd could possibly have backed up the over 5 gig of info on my computer. If I am wrong please tell me, but otherwise I must find a program that will allow me to copy everything - even if a directory is split by the copies - and allow me to functionally reinstall everything.

It existed for the floppies! It must exist for the cds! BUT WHERE?