Advanced Lilo dual boot help
 

Hello! I've been running slackware 9.1 on a 40GB hard drive (master), and windows98 on another 40GB hard drive (slave) - been using lilo to boot between the two, and has been working fine.

Now I purchased a 160GB hard drive, and want to put slackware and windows on the same hard drive. I have partitioned it with /dev/hda1 for /, /dev/hda5 as swap, /dev/hda3 for /home, and /dev/hda4 as FAT32 for windows.

So I moved all of the slackware files over to the new 160GB hard drive, booted from the live CD, and installed lilo, so now slackware is running great, so next, while I was in linux, moved all of my windows files from my old windows hard drive to the new fat32 partition /dev/hda4. I have been fighting with lilo to let me boot into windows on that partion, but it gives me the error "Invalid System Disk." and then "Please remove and press return to continue." or something along those lines. Yes, I made triple sure there is nothing in the floppy drive or CD drives :)

Basically, my question is, can you boot to windows if it's not installed on the first partition of a hard drive - in my case /dev/hda4 ? Anyone have some lilo tricks for me? My extensive google-ing has failed me this time. Thanks in advance.

===================================================
Here's my layout right now:
Master Hard Drive (160GB E-IDE):
/dev/hda1 ... ext3 ... /
/dev/hda5 ... swap
/dev/hda3 ... ext3 ... /home
/dev/hda4 .... fat32 .... windows files

Slave Hard Drive (40GB E-IDE)
/dev/hdb1 ... fat32 ... windows files

Here's my current lilo.conf:====================================

boot = /dev/hda
prompt
timeout = 100

change-rules
reset

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
vga=791

bitmap=/boot/bootPic.bmp
bmp-table=114p,347p,2,7 # label position on the screen p=pixel

image = /boot/bzImage-2.6.4 # my current 2.6 kernel - works great
label=Linux-2.6.4
root=/dev/hda1
read-only
append="hdd=ide-cd"

other = /dev/hdb1 # This works just fine - my old windows hard drive & files
label = OldWin98
boot-as = 0x80

other = /dev/hda4 # Exact same files as /dev/hdb1, but won't boot. No idea what to do
label = NewWin98
table=/dev/hda


image = /boot/vmlinuz # my old, stable 2.4 kernel - just in case ;-)
root = /dev/hda1
label = Linux-2.4.22
read-only

Hi,

Check this thread. I don't know if it'll help. My reply there might help you (especially lba32).

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=176851

Arvind

Are you sure you can simply copy all those windows files from one partition to the other? That it works with Linux, I can fully understand, but with windows...

No, it won't work, not to copy an Windows install.

Do you have a backup program like Ghost? If so, you could Ghost the Windows partition to move it (maybe), but really, the thing to do would be to reinstall Windows to the new partition.

Thanks anyways guys - figured out a workaround my moving around some partitions and such.... Now I've got a triple boot: Slackware 9.1, Windows98, and just got Gentoo installed - emerging kde right now..... Going to add FreeBSD tomorrow, probably - going for a Quadruple boot - W00t! ;-)