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Old 09-26-2004, 10:19 PM   #1
dwmorton
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Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Illinois, USA
Distribution: Fedora 12 & 13, x86_64
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Mounting two bootable Linux drives on the same system


I have two hard drives - one that I am actively using in my Fedora Core 2 64-bit system. The other is an old Linux install that is still bootable.

I would like to mount my old Linux disc in my system, copy some files onto my new disc, then reformat the old disc and use it for storage.

The problem is that when I try to boot with both discs installed, the system invariably ends up booting from and mounting the old Linux disc but with the swap partition on the new Linux disc. I have changed boot order. I have even tried telling BIOS to ignore the old disc. Nothing seems to change.

My question: Is there a graceful way (i.e., something short of unplugging my current system disc and using my Fedora rescue CD to wipe out the boot partition on the old disc) that will allow me to mount my old disc under my new system to copy files and then reformat?

System: SK8V, Opteron 142, 1 GB Ram, 160 GB SATA, Radeon 9800 pro

Last edited by dwmorton; 09-26-2004 at 10:24 PM.
 
Old 09-26-2004, 10:44 PM   #2
2damncommon
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If your BIOS, hard drive jumpers, hard drive cables, and boot manager are set up right that should not be happening.
An easy workaround would be to tell the BIOS to ignore your Old Linux hard drive.
The PC should ignore it but Linux will still find it.
 
Old 09-26-2004, 10:53 PM   #3
bigrigdriver
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Tell us what bootloader you're using, and show us the bootloadedr config. That might explain things.
 
Old 09-27-2004, 08:18 PM   #4
dwmorton
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I'm using grub...

Here is my grub.conf file:

----------------------
# 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 (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdg2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hdg
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.6.8-1.521)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.8-1.521 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.8-1.521.img
title Fedora Core (2.6.7-1.494.2.2)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.7-1.494.2.2 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.7-1.494.2.2.img
title Fedora Core (2.6.5-1.358)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img
-------------------------

I have a single disc SATA as my primary system drive with /boot, / and swap partitions.

The second drive (i.e., old linux drive) is a PATA drive configured as slave (shows up as hdb1/2/3 for boot, / and swap partitions).

It doesn't seem to matter what BIOS choices I make. I can tell BIOS to IGNORE the PATA drive. It still shows up and acts as the boot drive! The only thing that makes it disappear is to unplug the drive.
 
Old 09-27-2004, 08:26 PM   #5
michaelk
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Does the old disk have a RH or Fedora distro on it? If so I would guess that having multiple partitions with the same label is causing problems. Have you seen any errors during the boot process?

You can use the tune2fs utility to change the labels on the old drive to something besides / and boot.

The advantages to labels is that you can move partitions around with out having to change the bootloader or the /etc/fstab file.

I do not know if you will need to boot a rescue disk to perform to change the labels or not.

Last edited by michaelk; 09-27-2004 at 08:27 PM.
 
Old 09-27-2004, 08:28 PM   #6
2damncommon
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I will bow out as I have no idea how SATA devices affect boot up behavior.
Setting the problem drive to none in the BIOS should leave it unfound.
Good Luck.
 
Old 09-27-2004, 09:40 PM   #7
dwmorton
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Registered: Apr 2004
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Distribution: Fedora 12 & 13, x86_64
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There is an error when I boot, when linux tried to mount other partitions, it complains there are two boot partitions and fails to mount the second boot partiton.

It looks like tune2fs might be my best option. I'll give it a try...
 
  


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