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making a non bootable patrion bootable

I have Suse 9.0 set up on a second disk in a non bootable partion.
is there a way to make this partion bootable with out reinstalling linux and all the programs current installed.

fdisk will do it.

Code:

Sat Jul 31 04:23 PM fancy@uilleann ~ $ su -

Password:

Sat Jul 31 04:23 PM root@uilleann ~ # fdisk /dev/hdb

                                                                                                                            

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 9729.

There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,

and could in certain setups cause problems with:

1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)

2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs

  (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

                                                                                                                            

Command (m for help): m

Command action

  a  toggle a bootable flag

  b  edit bsd disklabel

  c  toggle the dos compatibility flag

  d  delete a partition

  l  list known partition types

  m  print this menu

  n  add a new partition

  o  create a new empty DOS partition table

  p  print the partition table

  q  quit without saving changes

  s  create a new empty Sun disklabel

  t  change a partition's system id

  u  change display/entry units

  v  verify the partition table

  w  write table to disk and exit

  x  extra functionality (experts only)

                                                                                                                            

Command (m for help): a

Partition number (1-4): 1

                                                                                                                            

Command (m for help): w

Without knowing more details the answer is probably yes.

What OS is on the first disk and what is its present boot loader. linux boot loaders really do not care about the boot flag.

first disk is XP with XP's natave boot system.
second disk is Linux.
I don't want to tuch the first fisk if possible.

In Linux, here is how drives are known
IDE 1 master = /dev/hda
IDE 1 slave =/dev/hdb
IDE 2 master = /dev/hdc
IDE 2 slave =/dev/hdd

Try the command

fdisk -l

as root. Here is what I get on my system:

Code:

Sat Jul 31 07:59 PM fancy@uilleann ~ $ su -

Password:

Sat Jul 31 08:00 PM root@uilleann ~ # fdisk -l

 

Disk /dev/hdc: 40.0 GB, 40037760000 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4867 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

 

  Device Boot    Start      End    Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hdc1  *        1      4867  39094146    c  Win95 FAT32 (LBA)

 

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

 

  Device Boot    Start      End    Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hda1  *        1      1215  9755991    c  Win95 FAT32 (LBA)

/dev/hda2          1215      2429  9751455    7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/hda3          2429      2446    140017+  83  Linux

/dev/hda4          2447      4865  19430617+  5  Extended

/dev/hda5          2447      2516    562243+  83  Linux

/dev/hda6          2517      3368  6843658+  83  Linux

/dev/hda7          3369      3795  3429846  83  Linux

/dev/hda8          3796      4222  3429846  83  Linux

/dev/hda9          4223      4865  5164866  83  Linux

 

Disk /dev/hdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

 

  Device Boot    Start      End    Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hdb1  *        1      9729  78148161  83  Linux

Sat Jul 31 08:00 PM root@uilleann ~ # mount

/dev/hda7 on / type ext3 (rw)

none on /proc type proc (rw)

none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)

usbdevfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw)

/dev/hda3 on /boot type ext3 (rw)

/dev/hda9 on /home type ext3 (rw)

/dev/hdc1 on /mnt/fat32 type vfat (rw)

none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)

/dev/hdb1 on /pub type ext3 (rw)

/dev/hda8 on /var type ext3 (rw)

/dev/hda1 on /mnt/win98 type vfat (rw)

/dev/hda2 on /mnt/win2k type ntfs (rw)

The system I am working with will allow me to set witch hard drive to boot from. With this I want to setup the second disk such that I can boot with out the dual boot system if need.

1) make the the partition on the second drive bootable
2) put MBR on the the partition

how do I load this Master boot Record