Dual Booting 2 Linux Installations
 

Hi.

I have 2 hd's installed in a PC. I have two seperate Red Hat 9.0 installs on each of them, however, I have major problems trying to access which one I want to use.

Is there a way to make a selection while GRUB is running? I've tried to use the install disk in order to create a new bootloader (using the update selection), and then listing the two installs in the list of installations, however, when I don't install anything else, I get a warning message saying that my bootloader will not be updated because I did not change any packages in the kernel.

Any ideas? I've even tried to change the bootloader to LILO or no bootloader at all, and get the same problems...

J.

you only need one boot loader...

i would recomend setting up the hard drive as follows...
hda: 1 swap partiton, 1 /boot partiton , and the main linux install partiton., and a /home partiton

hdb: only the main linux partiton.

you can get the linuz install on hdb to use the swap and home and boot from hda.

i would recoment you read a grub tutorial before attempting this.

Got a good GRUB tutorial in mind?

I'm pretty new to Linux, I just started using it about 2 months ago.

Do you think there is a way to do this without destroying the installs that are currently on the disk? Or will at least one of them have to be re-done?

J.

there is no reason why you would HAVE to destroy one... but it would be easyer to do.

if you are willing to re-install one drive, here is what i would do....

Install Redhat 9 (but keep BOTH hard drives plugged in so the install program can see them both)

ohh, this is not neccesery, but it would boost performance if the 2 hard drives were on different IDE cables... but you may need to edit your /etc/fstab to tell linux where your cdroms have moved to (no big deal) /dev/hda = primary master hdb = pimary slave, hdc = secondry master hdd = secondry slave.

ANYWAY... dureing the install, when you get to the part about partitoning, select MNAUALL PARTITON.

lets say for example you want to keep the install on the secondry master un-touched. and you are installing to primary master (or wherever u put the disks)

select ONE drive, and completely remove ALL partitons on it.. then cheate one partiton, that uses up the whole drive, select it to be formated as ext3, and mounted as '/'

Now select the Swap Partiton from the install you are not going to touch, and set that to be mounted as 'swap' and the same again with 'boot' make sure both /swap and /boot are set as 'DO NOT FORMAT'

then go on with the install.

if all goes to plan, when you boot, you should boot into the old linux install....
from there you will need to add to your /boot/grub/grub.conf to add the newly installed operating linux.... basically copy what there for the old linux install, and copy it again at the end of the file but changing the part that says where 'root' or '/' is located.

im no GURU.... and ive nver dont this before, but theory says it should work...
i would recomend you hunt down an expert and get a second opinion on
my instructions.

as for a grub tutorial.. search google.com/linux there are many to choose from.

is there any part of that u dont understand ?
not knowing how new you are to linux im not sure if i over/under simplified anything.. hehe.

oops, i should also add that before trying anything as drastic as that, bake a backup of your /boot/grub/grub.conf and have a play around with it.... here is my grub.conf

if i were attempting what u are attempting, i would add the lines...

that may work, i just changed the location of root.

but.. this is a lazy way... you only need one /boot and one swap partiton.
having two is wasting disk space.

as for the home directory... you only need one right ?
unless there is a real reason you want two..
you may want to delete the /home directory in the newer install.. in replace it with
a symbolic link to the old / home directory. (you would need to set /etc/fstab to mount the ond install on bootup of the new install... but thats also very easy)

I think I can follow all of that. Let me give it a try. The second install hasn't been customized that much, so it wouldn't kill me to re-do it. I'll see what happens.

Thank you for your help.

J.

you welcome...
but i still recomend you get an expert to give you a second opinion, as like ive said, to my knoledge it should work... (but ive never done it that way before)

qwijibow.

Thanks for the advice. I followed it, and also found another howto to get the details. Basically what you said worked, however, once I installed to the second disk again, it still was booting from the second disk somehow, then in the howto article, it talks about how to install GRUB as the bootloader back to the original disk. I'll post the howto for anyone elses benefit. Thanks again!!!

http://freeos.com/articles/3482/

J.