Problem with dual boot/dual drive setup
 

I'm having trouble figuring out how to accurately use GRUB or Lilo. I have a 200GB IDE hardrive with Suse installed. The other hardrive is a 300GB SATA with Windows XP installed. Each OS operates perfectly, but I can't get the "choose which OS" to come up on boot. Any suggestions? thanks in advance,
cfbaron@gmail.com

easiest way it to edit the /boot/grub.conf file, its pretty self explanatory.

if you can get to the grub command prompt you can manually boot a drive, however this gets a bit tedious if you have to do it every time. somthing like


rootnoverify (hd0,0) (for selecting the first drive first partition)

makeactive (hummm??? make the drive & partition active, maybe)

chainloader +1 (to set the block for grub to boot from, it is usally +1 as this is the standard position for
the mbr)

boot (no prises for guessing)

there are lots of tutorials on the internet you may need to specify the kernal file (/boot/vmlinuz) etc.

I got GRUb up, and working. At bootup, I get a "select which OS" screen with Suse, Windows, Floppy, and Suse (secure). The problem is that when I go into Windows I get a black screen with white letters that says:

root (hd1,0)
filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
CHAINLOADER +1

thanks again,
cfbaron@gmail.com

is your windows disk the slave drive and does the windows system sit on the first partition?

it's a slave,
i got things all workede out. thanks.

Can you post what you did to get things working? I had dual-booting (RH 9/Windows Xp) working for years, but I broke booting
into Xp when I reinstalled my master IDE with RHEL 4 last weekend. Now I get the problem you described.

My Xp install is on the slave (hdb), and it is partition 1, the sole partition.

Any tips would be appreciated

Tim

Well, not quite. I don't get the "filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7"
message. I do get the other grub output you show, and then a hang.

I followed the Red Hat installer's advice and did NOT allow grub to
install into the MBR. Instead, it went into the first sector of the first
partition (/boot) on hda.

Tim

do you get the grup prompt?

No, I don't. I just get

Booting 'Windows Xp Professional'

rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1


and then a hang.

I figured it out, using the info in the PDF here:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/doc...Grub-HOWTO.pdf

The problem was that under my old installation, even though Windows (and Linux) weren't
on drive 0 they could both boot successfully off that drive. I'm not sure I understand *why*
they could both boot successfully, but I'm not going to worry about it.

Under my new installation, grub loads off hd0, but Windows is on hd1 and it's not happy if
it's not on the first partition of the first drive. Using the grub "map" commands, I was able to
remap partitions before doing the "rootnoverify", and now Windows Xp boots just fine.

For reference, my working grub.conf is:

default=0
timeout=30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#hiddenmenu
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS (2.6.9-11.EL)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-11.EL ro root=/dev/vg00/root rhgb
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-11.EL.img
title Windows XP Professional
map (hd0,0) (hd1,0)
map (hd1,0) (hd0,0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

I've got a similar problem - my GRUB is screwed somehow. I formatted my linux drive; and re-installed Debian etc. However, after the setup; I can't neither boot to win, nor to debian.

Whenever I try to boot to win, I just get to the commandline. However, with the debian, I get "Error 22: Partition not found".

Technically:

I have 7 partitions on my 250 gb hdd; where partition 7 is my linux drive. Secondly, grub wants to load from (hd1,6) (yeah I have one hd0 there too...).

So to sum it up: i can't neither boot win nor debian, and it worked before. Any sugestions etc?