why lilo won't do it automatically?

Very simple you could have installed a MS system in the slave and boot it from there. Linux boot loaders are very simple programs and does not have time or resource to find out where the MS system was originally booted from.

Also Linux boot loaders can't read a NTFS filing system (relevant only XP and Win2k) to search a file and diagnose its content. Therefore it is a mission impossible to expect a boot loader to edit those lines in Post #30.

Lastly the Linux boot loaders can allow several MS systems to coexist and bootable inside the same disk and repeated again in any number of hard disks in the same PC. Linux provides the functionalities. It is up to the user to make use of them.

To hand everything on a plate is for the users who prefer to pay for their operating systems and like to be told not to deviate from functions they are provided.

I and others have already written how to trick MS onto a second drive

mine I think is in my tutorial summary is

let drive X be on the first controller and install MS
now swap drive X to controller 2 (losing its mbr info)
install drive 2 into controller position and install linux
install grub into this new drive and chainload to ms but use the map command as per my tut

version 2) install ms on drive 1 and take images of using norton ghost, acronis or partimage.

load linux on new drive 1
load images of ms onto drive 2
use grub to trick it as per tut

Aus9,

My second link in the signature has 3 methods of installing Linux but keeping Windows MBR untouched like a virgin.

Your method is among the three I advocate.

Regarding your 2nd method my comment would the extra work of cloning Windows can be avoided totally by

(1) Ask Bios to switch the 2nd disk to boot first and install Windows there. Then switch the 1st disk (Linux) back to the front of the booting queue and re-map the drive in Grub or Lilo.

(2) You can install Windows in the 1st disk and then put Linux in the 2nd disk thereby allowing Linux taking over the MBR and boot both systems automatically. Any time you need Windows MBR back you can restore it by a DOS floppy or Windows installation CD. Any time you prefer the Linux boot loader just use a Live CD to restore it.

(3) You can put both Windows and Linux in the same hard disk. I have not found any limitation of stuffing an IDE disk with over 60 systems. All described in my signature.

(4) If the windows is a NT version like a XP or a Win2k you can let MS's own boot loader NTLDR to dual Linux.

saikee
shucks... your got more stuff in your links than mine

I was responding to the pro lilo thread but forgive my intrusion I will sneak off just like the virgin lilo user that I am, heh heh

aus9,

I am just trying to simplify things and collate each others ideas. We obviously have covered similar ground together.

.....................................

saikee
this works :

# Partition 1 : DOS/Windows
other = /dev/hdb1
label = windows
table = /dev/hdb
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80

Glad to see a Linux user perseveres with Lilo got through at the end. Lilo is no different to Grub and the two have identical capabilities in many areas, though I must admit Grub is simpler to use.

I have commented many times before that Linux boot loaders are light years ahead of the MS boot loaders. It isn't a case MS boot loaders are inferior (although technically they are) but more to do with MS thinks its systems are the only ones used in the PC and so they are never engineered to multi-boot other systems or multiple versions of its own products.

It is therefore strange to find that either Lilo or Grub can boot all the MS systems ever marketed in one box but the same is beyond the capability of MS boot loaders.