can I do this? (dual boot)

pablowablo · 01-25-2005, 07:10 PM

Hello, I just bought a new hard disk and I decided to have a fresh start. I reinstalled both Windows and Linux in my pc. I also tried to do something different in my dual boot procedure. Here's what I did:

I installed Linux on my first hard drive.
I disconnected that drive and the installed Windows on another drive.
I reconnected the other drive and made it the first drive so I boot with linux.
I modified my grub config so I can boot Windows from grub.

I did all these so the second drive would contain only windows and the first one contains only linux. Windows XP has a nasty habit of forcing you to install it's boot record on the first drive connected, so I disconnected the first. Well, I just want my linux drive to be the first drive, so I chose this order.

Now, when I try to boot Windows through grub, nothing happens... the screen goes black for a short moment then the Grub screen displays again, choose windows = return to grub splash screen.

What could be wrong here? Can't I have two boot records on separate drives? I can boot windows when I set it at CMOS as the first boot option but I can't boot it through grub

Here's my grub/menu.lst:

<quote>

default 3

timeout 10

# Pretty colours
color cyan/blue white/blue

# Display a splashscreen
splashimage (hd0,0)/boot/splash.xpm.gz
foreground bbbbbb
background 000000

## ## End Default Options ##

title Libranet GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.21
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21 root=/dev/hda3 ro hdc=scsi
savedefault
boot

title Libranet GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.21 (single user mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21 root=/dev/hda3 ro hdc=scsi single
savedefault
boot

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

title Memory Test
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/memtest86.bin

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader+1
</quote>

mjrich · 01-25-2005, 07:29 PM

Quote:

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader+1

Change the rootnoverify line to: hd1,0. In other words, "boot xp from the first partition of the second drive (counting from zero)". You may also need to add some mapping options, as Windows doesn't like being told by the boot loader that it's on the second drive... e.g.

Code:

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader+1 
map          (hd0,0) (hd1,0)
map          (hd1,0) (hd0,0)

Cheers,

mj

pablowablo · 01-25-2005, 08:21 PM

Thanks for your help!

I tried what you said, but the same thing still happens

Is it peculiar that I don't get an error message? It just goes back to the grub screen...
Maybe I just have to make my Windows drive the first drive?

Anyway here are my changes.

Code:

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader+1
map	(hd0,0) (hd1,0)
map	(hd1,0) (hd0,0)

mjrich · 01-25-2005, 08:27 PM

Are you sure that a) the Bios thinks that the XP drive is the slave, and that b) XP is on the first partition on that drive ? (It's often on the second, with the first being reserved for hardware utilities). What is the output of, as root

Code:

fdisk -l /dev/hda
fdisk -l /dev/hdb

Cheers,

mj