Hi there!
I have this kind of problem:
OS: Suse Linux ent. srv. 9.0
2 disks under sataraid controller SiI3114 (RAID presently disabled)
fdisk -l gives:

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 131 1052226 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda2 * 132 19456 155228062+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 5099 40957686 e W95 FAT16 (LBA)

The current only sdb partition was created when trying to install W2k professional, after removing the existing, empty ones.
Of course, windows wants to write the MBR on disk0 (/dev/sda), but it does not recognise the linux partitions.

mount gives:

/dev/sda2 on / type reiserfs (rw,acl,user_xattr)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
/dev/hdc on /media/cdrecorder type subfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,fs=cdfss,procuid,iocharset=utf8)
/dev/hdd on /media/cdrecorder11 type subfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,fs=cdfss,procuid,iocharset=utf8)
/dev/fd0 on /media/floppy type subfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,sync,fs=floppyfss,procuid)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)

So I cannot find any space in /dev/sda to let windows have its MBR or even install, without affecting the existing, mounted (and fully covering the disk) linux filesystem.
The naive idea was to let the two OS have two different disk to enjoy themselves, and possibly "talk each other" by files in a FAT32 partition to be created.

Am I hopeless? Can I configure GRUB or LILO or install GAG to "hide" the whole disk0 and make the w2k installation run? And what if I physically unplug disk0 and start from scratch an installation of w2k, to later plug disk0 in again (hopefully recovering the linux installation and managing the dual boot from there)?

TIA and sorry for being too wordy and too naive

Nicola

on multi OS systems, you have to install windows first, as its so crappy it wont allow you to install it along side another OS very easily

If you can use your installation CD as rescue CD or a liveCD or you have some other way of getting into a linux environment you can just install windows and then use this method to change your lilo and grub settings to make it work again. Not as easy as working out of the box, not hard enough to reinstall it for or do windows first.

Hi everybody,
Thanks for your suggestions.
Anyway I eventually came across a nice HOWTO on the web (italian version on http://it.tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+Win9x+Grub/index.html), where a similar situation was considered (although for w9x-FAT32).
Well, as I had GRUB installed, I was able to map the drives in order to make Windows see the second drive as first.
W2k installation started, but now I have an hardware compatibility problem as I get a "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA" error message, that also quotes ACPI.sys module as involved.
I tried to make it boot with acpi=off option in GRUB, but the error is still there.
I'm now trying to install XP.
I wonder if is a matter of 32 vs 64 bit processor architecture.
BTW, does anybody know how to configure GRUB so as to boot from CD?

Thanx

N.

I don't think you'll let grub start that. Don't you mean just booting from the CD you put in? If it doesn't yet you have to change some BIOS settings to make it work.

No, BIOS is already OK in this respect.
What I need is a GRUB-managed boot from CD because I have to map the drives in order to "cheat" windows about where to write its MBR.
Nevertheless, maybe BIOS is still involved in this, because what I have is that GRUB only recognises my SCSI devices:
(hd0)=>/dev/sda
(hd1)=>/dev/sdb
(fd0)=>/dev/fd0
while I could not find a way to "introduce" to GRUB either /dev/hdc or /dev/hdd that are the (IDE ?) CDrom drives.
no mention on this in GRUB documentation or web page,
I've found something on linuxforums.org, but the case mentioned there concerns only IDE devices.
Should I change anything in the BIOS?

TIA
N.

up from the dead.

did you ever figure out how to use grub to trick the windows cd? i'm trying to do the same thing (same guide) but i can't figure it out. my cdrom drive is /dev/hdc and in /boot/grub/devices.map i have:

(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdc

and in the menu.lst file

title windows install cd
map (hd0, 0) (hd0, 9)
map (hd0, 9) (hd0, 0)
chanloader (hd1)+1

and then it says hd1 invalid device specification or device does not exist or something. i've tried dozens of different things but nothing let's grub see my cdrom drive. the bios is setup ok.

anybody know how to do this? the grub documentation makes no mention of cdrom drives and i've been on google for about 9 hours.

alright nevermind it doesn't look like this is going to work at all.

windows thinks it's the center of the universe and has to have sector 0 of the disk. i installed windows first and then ubuntu and i can dual boot now. much easier that way.

as soon as i'm done with this class that uses this stupid software on cd i'm gonna trash windows with as much spyware etc as possible. yes bill, you're primary purpose for your software is my amusement.

Windows will always need to be on the master hd and it'll overwrite the MBR. The only way which might work is install linux, install windows, use the linux CD as rescue CD to enter single user mode and run lilo to get the MBR right again.

But that's because linux is giving windows a place of its own in there as well.