Dear Linux Forumer,

I have a big problem here that I cannot find solution from the internet resources so far.

Here is what I want to do:

To have XP and Linux co-exist on my laptop on the same HD, different partition, whereby the choosing of OS is done at boot up menu.

And here is the biggest hurdle:

My laptop DO NOT have internal floppy disk drive NOR internal CD-ROM drive, and therefore no option to boot from floppy or CD – I can only boot up from HD.

I purposely bought this type of laptop because it is really light and cheap. I bought USB floppy drive and CD-ROM drive, but total cost is still less than laptops with internal CD and floppy. The brand is Mustek made in China.

I have successfully installed XP by taking out the laptop HD and install it into a desktop via a secondary IDE bus and then install XP. After finished, I put the HD back into the laptop and everything works fine.

When I tried the same thing for Linux, ie, take out the laptop, install to a desktop via secondary IDE then install Linux Red Hat 9 on a second partition. Installation works fine on desktop, but after putting back to laptop, Linux just cannot start-up AT ALL. It keeps on rebooting very prematurely. It seems like Linux cannot adjust itself to suit the change to laptop environment during boot up like XP does.

I have read about KickStart but all its options require floppy or CD boot up which I don’t have.

One possible solution I have in mind is:

1 – Take out the HD and install to desktop.
2 – Boot up the desktop with Linux CD, format a partition in the HD to Linux format.
3 – Make a boot up menu to have Linux (and XP) as one OS option.
4 – Copy all necessary files to boot up minimal Linux (text mode) into the partition.
5 – Copy all Linux CDs into the HD for the actual installation in step 8.
(step 2 to 5 is to be done on desktop with CD-ROM boot up)
6 – Put back the HD into laptop.
7 – Boot up the laptop with Linux OS.
8 – Run the actual installation from the same HD using the precopied installation files in step 5.

The problem is that I just do not know how to perform step 2-5 and 8. These procedure should be able to do as Linux is available on 100% CD like Knoppix so it should be available on 100% HD right (right ?). I actually did this procedure when I install Windows 98 into that same laptop before.

Anyone can help me with this ? Or anyone with other option ?


Muhazam

When you installed Linux and the boot loader is setup, it was setup for a different ide bus. You need to change your boot loader to laod from /dev/hda1.

I would do as Tangle suggested.

Put hdd back in desktop, booting Linux if possible. Otherwise most install disks will double as an emergengy repair disk, or you can boot one of many System-Rescue or Live-CDs. Mount or remount -o rw the hard drive partitions. Go to /boot/grub/menu.lst or whatever boot manager you're using and set all the disk parameters as it would be were it in the laptop. Save the changes, but do NOT reboot. Open /etc/fstab and again make all of the /dev/hdXX references reflect what it would be were it in the laptop.

WinDoze probably hda1
first Linux partition hda2
Etc.

You could then test it in the desktop by disconnecting the primary IDE drive and substituting the laptop drive as the primary. That way you could boot whatever CD to work out any details we may have messed up on.

Another approach could be letting XP provide the bootloader. If you do a search on google/linux for NT Bootloader you should find it fairly easily. I haven't done it in a long time but you basically make a snapshot of the drive layout from Linux with dd. Copy the resultant file to removable media, mail it to yourself, whatever, and save it to c:\ in WinDoze and make the edit to boot.ini to point it to the snapshot you copied earlier.

You will still need to make the corrections in etc/fstab to reflect the proper partitions when the drive is in the laptop.

Good Luck!
--glenn

I did not give this info in my first post. Actually when I install Red Hat into the laptop HD using a desktop 2nd IDE, I detached all other HDs in the desktop, on 1st and 2nd IDE. This means there is only 1 HD exist during installation which is the laptop HD on 2nd IDE. The motherboard setup prog recognise this HD as hdisk2. From my experience with Linux (which is not so much) and Windows, I think these OS-s do not bother to which IDE the HD is attached. If there is only 1 HD, Windows will always assign drive C: to it, and Linux will always assign /dev/hda0 to it.

From the grub.conf file as attached below, I think it confirms what I'm saying because it registers Linux on {root (hd0,1)}. Anyway I don't really understand the content of the file and where should I edit it.

Any comment glenn and tangle ?

======================================
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,1)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdc3
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hdc
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title Microsoft Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
=========================================

Muhazam,

You're correct about the drive being assigned correctly, your menu.lst is fine.. I imagine /etc/fstab is ok as well. That leaves some kind of hardware difference, or something like that. If you had it booting to a display manager, there's a good chance X will abort because of the hardware change. X would attempt to start once or twice more and then give up and boot to command line. I'll assume that's not what is happening, because you say it reboots.

I'd say it's time to start experimenting with boot options. I'd try noacpi for starters. Booting knoppix on your desktop, and looking at some of the boot options / overrides might be a good idea at this point. It sounds to me like something in hardware land is tripping it up.

Maybe someone will have a better idea

Good luck!
--glenn

I would try and find a PXE server, then you could do a network install. I do these using the Altiris software all the time, but you probably don't have access to that. You should still be able to put a minimal boot on the linux drive (Even dos) and then boot vmlinuz and stuff. Once it is on the network, you can also copy over ks.cfg to kickstart the install.

Also, check the BIOS for USB boot. Many newer computers/MoBo's have the option to boot from a USB HDD or CD Rom.

I think what nweaver916 wrote about network with kickstart is a good option.
I had think of that before but didn't actualy did it because setting up a small network at home is
a kind of troublesome.

I'll try this option, but still welcome other ideas.

I think it is a good project if anyone want to write an installation procedure program
as I outlined in my first post in this thread. If someone can write Knoppix, why this
procedure can't be written, right ? (I can't - I'm a newbie) Or if someone already wrote
it we can share it here. Otherwise windoze can smile that it still have a feature that Linux don't.

Muhazam

I am suprised that the Windows works. Usually, moving from one H/W Platform to another, without a reinstall will cause BSOD on bootup. I guess if your desktop is a similar chipset and stuff, you could do it.


I checked again, and you can download Altiris for a 30 day demo. You would need to turn on DHCP, and install altiris, but then you could modify their jobs (think they only have RH7 and 8, can't remember w/default install) and get it going. The other cool thing is that after you make the image, and tweak it to where you like it, suck it back up as an executable file. You can then burn these to CD Rom and use them as a bootable restore disk. It's not as gracefull as regular altiris (where you can pick and choose different partitions to overwrite, thus keeping /var or /usr, etc) but it would work. BTW, with that laptop, did you double check the BIOS for USB Boot?