Hellloo,

When i try to install grub instead of lilo i get the message:

/dev/ram3 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.

I am booting from the mandrake rescue disk to get into a console.
I just can't seem to get mandrake 10 to boot up. Been at it for two weeks now of a night time.

Brief:
hda=winxp hdb=mandrake 10 (both IDE drives)
I tried installing mandrake on hda as only OS and it works fine.
At boot up after now i get lilo error L 01 01 01 01 01

that boot error is a lilo error so grub can not be in your mbr for the mbr the bios was sent to.
It may be in the mbr for other drive but not enough info at this stage

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=237511
may help

but consider this

bios to drive 1 mbr ntldr or grub then to its booting files or
bios to drive 2 mbr ntldr or grub then to its booting files

booting files are in /boot for grub.....you need to choice the bios boot order which then determines if you use my grub way of installing grub to hd0 or hd1

knoppix can see what /boot is on hdb1 etc if you put /boot there....and if it looks fine just install grub to mbr and point it to the correct folder

like
root (hd1,0)
setup (hd0)

but of course check you will know how to set up windows stuff

Thanks a heap your link, it looks very useful for me. I will print it and play around tonight.

I am very new to unix so you may have to spoon feed me a little.
I am a little lost by what you meant here.

Also if i install a bootloader to hdb1 how do i stop the system from reading the mbr on hda? Do i just change the boot order in the bios?

each hard drive ...each floppy or each cd all have a master boot record.

You will need to go into your bios to see which drive is being booted up first.
Assuming you have an award bios press the DEL key a couple of times when you see the bios splash page or the bios message page.......if its not del key then try these ....F10 or F2.
If they don't work you will need to look for your receipt to see who is your motherboard and go to that website to see what bios they are using......and how to get in.

when the bios boots to say drive 1 it can not read the mbr of the other drive.
Once booting files take over the bios has done its job.

ok great that makes sense to me. I had already changed the boot order to only hdb and nothing else and this also gave me a lilo error L01 01 01.

I am thinking perhpas i need to look at the drive itself or the partitions on it. Thanks for help with explaining the boot sequence. I am determined to get this running and change over eventually once i can walk instead of crawl.

Thanks for all your help. The BIOS wasnt picking up the second hd.

A change to detect on auto and next boot everything was sweet. Thanks zenith for your help too