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Hello all. I'm new to Linux (but not new to computers in general). I've got two HDs, one running XP and one running RH8, and they both work when set as master. Does anyone know of a way to boot off of a slave? I thought changing the boot.ini might do it, but it hangs at boot and says that HD1 is not found, so I changed it back. Any thoughts?
Ideally, I want it set up so that booting with ctrl depressed (or some such thing) would cause it to boot Linux from the slave.
This seems to be why god/whoever (not Linus this time ) invented the BootLoader. Install Lilo or Grub on your Master Boot Record and then pick which os to boot. It works perfectly for me and Win98 and Mdk9.1
I assume that at the moment you are changing which device your BIOS is set to boot from to switch between Window and Linux. Well we're going to leave the drives as they are and instead use a BootLoader program to allow us to make the choise of OS. You can set which boots by default, and how long you have to make a different choice each time. (NB: Dont set it to default to windows with no choice time )
Btw, is windows the primary master drive?
I use Mandrake instead of RedHat, and so dont know exactly how to guide you around their Control Centre if they have one like Mandrake, or how to alter the Grub bootloader, becase Mdk uses Lilo instead.
As a matter of fact, right now I'm switching the HDs' positions (master to slave) in order to switch, and that isn't at all convienient. Thus right now (as I'm on XP), the XP is the master and the Linux is slave.. but I need to know how to switch without removing the drives, as the jumpering is tiresome (especially since my XP drive doesn't have a jumper diagram :P)
There's a lot of info here at LQ and elsewhere online about how to configure Grub which I'm guessing your RedHat is still using on it's own drive to load linux.
Hmm, you have an interesting situation. You need to research either:[list=1][*]Switch drives so you can boot linux[*]Configure Grub to have linux and windows entries[*]Configure grub to work from the window drive (Probably /dev/hdb at this point)[*]Turn off and switch drives back[*]Start up and Grub should be there to give you the two options.[*]In linux the windows drive will now be /dev/hda and should remain that now. You shouldnt need to alter Grub any more.[/list=1]
OR
[list=1][*]Switch drives and boot into linux[*]Make a boot disk[*]Turn off, switch drives, and set your BIOS to boot off floppy disk first[*]Boot linux via the floppy boot disk[*]Configure Grub to install on the MBR which'll be on the windows drive, /dev/hda at this time.[*]Take the boot disk out, set the BIOS to boot off harddrives again, and on booting it should show Grub giving the two options.[/list=1]Basically you're going into linux, and installing grub on the windows drive, to be ready to work when you switch drives back so windows is first.
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