Dual booting with XP
 

Hi:

I have install Suse 10.0 in my one of my computers... it works just great. Now I took the hard drive from my other computer (with XP) and tried to put them together in one machine. I tried the master/slave configuration but it does not seem to work.

I can get linux to but if it is the master, but I don't see XP. I can boot XP as the master, but I don't see linux... any word of advice?

Thanks

Tony

Boot loader
 

It might be solved if you re-installed SuSE.

You need to get a boot laoder fixed, either GRUB or LILO and a reinstall might fix it.

Yes I've had trouble with that before, if you install windows on a master/slave/whatever, it'll only ever work off the one you install it onto.

Can you put WinXP as master, your Linux drive as slave, and boot off the slave using a boot menu from the BIOS?

Alternatively, you can put your Linux drive in master, Windows XP in slave, format it, and use the wasted space for storing digital media instead :D

Aaron

Hello again:

I was able to setup both HD. My linux as a master and then XP as a slave. I can boot any one by going into the BIOS and selecting master or slave... now my question is, is there a way to have a boot option without going into BIOS? I had an boot option when I installed Suse in my laptop, before booting it asked me if I wanted to boot suse or windows. any help?

TC

Windows requires some boot information to be stored on the master drive in the system. You cannot take it from one computer put it in another and expect it to boot it will not as a slave device. There is light however but it will destory your current boot loader. Boot from the windows xp cd rom and do a repair installation. this will readd the boot information on the master parttion. then you will need to reinstall your boot loader.


A better way would be to format your windows xp drive and reinstall it. then fix the boot loader for linux.


hope this helps

install a boot-loader like "grub" - then you can select which one to boot without going through BIOS every time

You are a bit lucky that a Windows-installation from one computer worked also on another - but still:
I wonder why some think a reinstall (be it linux or Windows...) is THE fix for any problem - it actually is the VERY LAST resort and normally not needed - this is especialy true for linux...
He said that he could boot both systems fine by going through Bios...so there was nothing broken.

Yes, I don't have a problem booting into any of the HD. I was just wondering if it is possible to boot without accesing the Bios. I also thought that GRUB comes with suse once it is installed. What do you mean by "installing grub? In fact, when I boot Suse (which by the way is my master HD, XP is my slave) it says "Grub is booting Suse..." so I thought Grub was already there. Is there anything I have to do to Grub in order to have a boot option?

Thanks!

TC

Looks like this to me:
You installed suse - and suse installed grub as your boot-loader.
Since you only had linux on that disk at this time it probably did not bother you with setting up a boot-screen from which you could select which system to boot, because there was only one.

Now you have two systems.
Suse has Yast to configure it - including the boot-loader.
You should look into that to add your windows to the menu of grub - or to initially set up a menu which was not needed before.
I don't know Suse well and am not familiar with the way it works - so I can't be specific here - sorry.

You can alternatively edit the configuration-file by hand butyou should know how to do this.
As an example I include my configuration and one that _should_ fit your configuration
This is my file /boot/grub/menu.lst (which is the same as /boot/grub/grub.conf)
I have a separate partition for /boot (/dev/hda2) my / partition is /dev/hda3 - hda is for "first drive on primary controller"
here is one that could suit your needs - just add (append) the Windows XP section to your existing menu.lst:
This assumes that your windows disk is slave on the first (primary) ide-controller
If it is slave on the second ide-controller rootnoverify (hd1,0) would become rootnoverify (hd3,0)

... I don't think it matters whether your drives are primary/secondary master/slave, grub numbers the drives as they are found, for example if you have a drive on primary slave and one on secondary master, they will be named hd0 and hd1 respectively.

Ive done windows xp/ME/98 support for over 4 years with microsoft. Reinstall is the last option but its eazier then typeing out the entire reinstallation of the boot loader and crap from a recovery consol.

Plus this will update something we liked to call the gumball witch is the core driver file for the operating system.

When you move your os like this there are several things that it does that can cause an end user issues.

1. microsoft will not support you and will tell you to format if you have an issue.


2. registery entries that the os created for your hardware setup may be duplicated or inconsistent.


3. Stablity issues due to loading drivers no longer present on the system.


I do know tho that even with grub installed on the system if you dont have the loader for the os on the main drive it will not work.

the chain loader for grub basicly passes off booting the os to the boot loader for microsoft. this is why it wont work this loader lives in the boot area of the harddrive. This is complicated and with XP was never made real clear how many boot loaders there actually are on the system. I know of 2 of them 1. an unnamed one on the first drive of the system and 2. NTLDR that lived on the installed drive.


Your better off just resintallig windows xp after backing up data and then reinstalling grub to be able to boot both os's. Trying to fix windows's stupid boot sequence is a waste of time.