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XP/RH9 Dual-Boot Help (On 1 HD)
I know you've seen something similar to this before, and I've read most of the posts, but I can't find anyone who's partitioning up one HD for both XP and RH9 w/out the luxury of Partition Magic or a full-blown XP install disc.
One hard drive (40 GB) on the computer wife brought home for late night coding/compiling. It came w/ XP recovery disc only and was partitioned as follows:
hda1 0.031 39.221 Dell "Dell System" (MBR)
hda2 39.221 39146.021 NTFS Win XP
At the time, I was under the impression that /boot needed to be in top 1024 cylinders. So I present to you one disk, partitioned as follows (w/out Partition Magic):
hda1 0.031 39.221 FAT "Dell System" (MBR)
hda2 39.221 164.221 ext2 /boot
hda3 164.221 16167.021 extended
hda5 164.221 ~2200.000 swap
hda6 ~2200.000 16167.021 ext2 /
hda4 16167.021 39146.021 NTFS Windows XP Pro
Pushed XP Pro back in order to get /boot w/in 1024 cylinders, and in the process just figured it would be easier to leave a big hole near \boot where Linux could go. Did it all by partitioning original hda2--one big NTFS partition--and then installing XP to both partitions. Played around in regedit, made XP treat second, newer partition as the main XP (system vol), and then formatted the older partition that had original XP on it. Went through all of that because I'm not going to pay $70 for P-Magic just so I can move one lousy NTFS partition.
BTW, the "parted" utility on my linux rescue disk keeps warning me that Windows won't like my hd1 partition. Can't remember why--had something to do with size and allocation.
Put GRUB on MBR. grub-conf file looks like:
default=0
timeout=20
splash=something, something
title RH Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=TITLE/
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title Win XP
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
chainloader +1
Also, the specifics on devices, monitor I gave during the RH install
process didn't stick in my XFree86 config file.
Result:
When I boot Linux from GRUB menu, all the diagnostics go okay and I go to a blank screen. Tried to mess with my inittab file, but it's completely blank, which throws me off the trail other Linux neophytes have left before me.
When I boot XP from GRUB menu, I receive a "Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format" message from GRUB with the final 2 lines of my grub.conf file listed below the mesage.
By reinstalling XP, I can get it to boot up again, but that's not what I want, as an XP reinstall messes with the MBR, gets rid of GRUB, and flags hd4 as "boot." (Note: When I'm in XP after disabling GRUB, XP acts as though it doesn't notice the Linux partition. The system volume is still C:, and everything seems okay.)
I have a feeling I've got a lot of work cut out for me. Don't mind
doing the work (I'll reformat, eliminate partitions, and reinstall
everything if that's what it takes), just want to get it done. Any
help appreciated.
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