Smart Boot Manager
 

I'm about to install the Smart Boot Manager rpm so that I will be able to boot from my usb. My bios doesn't support booting up from the usb port. Will this cause conflict with grub?

I currently have Fedora 14 installed and about to install CentOS 5.5.

Thank you,
Mike

I hope that what you're trying works because I have an Acer Aspire laptop that doesn't support usb boot also.
I checked a lot of posts that said there was nothing I could do so I never asked the question.

GL.

I think plop and maybe smart boot can be on a cd or maybe floppy. I think slitaz (maybe?) had a boot cd with those choices on it. That way, you can't mess up the current install.

Some distro's also offer floppy or cd to be used to get the system to then boot to usb.

No harm done installing btmgr-3.7-1.i386.rpm.

But before you do anything like: # sbminst -d /dev/sda
... better be sure, that grub is installed to super block
= the partitions with the Linux installs.

..

Most usb drives come with a small cd, maybe 2.5 in is that supposed to be like a boot manager? It doesn't say exactly what it's for.

The small disc sent with USB devices are usually Windoze driver packs LOL.

It's my winsxp drive that I took out of laptop

I install the Smart BootManager rpm using the following command

rpm -ivh /home/btmgr-3.7-1.i386.rpm

it installed successfully, however, when I rebooted the Laptop it booted as normal. Shouldn't it go to the Smart BootManager screen first before it boots up Linux?

# 8 : btmgr-3.7-1.i386.rpm will provide /usr/sbin/sbminst

Installing the command 'sbminst' doesn't run the command.
( Like the most other commands.)

It is your decision, where to install the boot loader.
Whether it is hda hdb sda sdb , etc. etc.

Please read post # 4 carefully.
..

Installing grub to super block :
Boot into your OS, and do ( example with hda3 / sda3 ) :
# grub
grub > find /boot/grub/stage1
grub > root (hd0,2)
grub > setup (hd0,2)
quit

..

sbminst -d /dev/sda worked but it wiped out the partitions I had. It simply converted the entire HD into a vfat partition. When I tried to install Fedora from the Live CD it won't allow "No free space on disk to install Fedora!". I had to use a Windows 98 CD I had to delete the vfat partition, format the disk, install Win 98 and then use the live cd to install Fedora again.

Anyway, when I restarted the laptop after running the sbminst -d /dev/sda command my USB ports won't show up, even I have two ports, so it's of no use to me now.

Thanks for the help guys! Something was accomplished tonight ;)

It seems, that Fedora 14 can't live together with Smart Boot Manager.
Everything else ....... all Linux ( including all previous Fedoras ),
BSD, Solaris, Windows© : No issues.

( You should have been able to boot into Windows.)

Suggest : Use another chain loader.
( Most people are just using grub.)

..