I need dual boot advice
 

I currently have Mandriva 10.2 with LILO on the MBR (not the root). I have about half my drive empty and unformatted that I saved for a Windows install. Is it possible to create a dual boot system with LILO on the MBR? If so could someone point me in the right direction?

Thank You!

You should be able to, so long as windows doesn't wipe over your mbr when it's installing. If you install windows and it does unfortunately wipe the mbr, then you can still recover your mandrake install (I have done this before, accidently wiped my mbr when installing another distro on another partition). The way I did it was to use a live cd, mount the partitions and run the lilo command to reinstall lilo...
Anyway, you might want to have a look here: http://www.littlewhitedog.com/content-52.html for some advise on dual booting. I believe that uses the windows boot loader though. There are plenty of other ways of doing this though if you do not fancy doing it this way.

Hi,

best and easiest way is to install windows first, on the first partition.

Then install Linux, and you don't have to worry about installing Lilo or Grub yourself...

Good luck!

Windows XP/2k can boot a maximum of 10 systems.

Lilo can do 15.

Haven't found out a limit for Grub yet but it looks like into 3 digits.

In Linux multi-boot is child play because one can make a Grub bootable floppy to boot all of them.

Tools needed for multi-boot:- Grub floppy, Dos floppy (with fdisk.exe), XP/2k installation CD, a couple of Linux Live CD.

Thanks for the quick replies!


I don't think you have a choice but to wipe the MBR when installing XP... Can anyone confirm this?


Okay, so if I were to start over and install XP first on its own partition, where would I want to install the boot loader when I install Mandriva... the MBR or Root? Does it matter?

The boot loader in the MBR can be overwritten as often as one wants. The trick is to know how to replicate it for each system.

It is a good practice to give the first primary partition tp XP or Win2k because these systems have been written anticipating being in it. In practice it doesn't matter as long as the partitions ahead in the booting queue are foreign (like a Linux) or hidden. I have a W2k in sdb3 (3th partition in the 4th disk) working satisfactory but a bit sluggish.

To multi-boot one needs the boot loader in the MBR to perform the task and the NTLDR requires the most work, Grub requies the least while Lilo is in the middle.

Different from XP, all Linux can put its boot loader "inside" its own partition and on a floppy in additional to the MBR. Doing all three can save the system's arXe should its boot loader in the MBR over written by XP or a fellow Linux.

With the floppy it can be booted up and accessible.

With a boot loader in its root partition a Linux is "chainloaderable" by XP's NTLDR, LInux's Lilo or Grub.

To chainload a system one amends the script file of its boot loader in MBR.

For NTLRD it is boot.ini (hidden file in C:\ )

For Lilo it is /etc/lilo.conf

For Grub it is /boot/grub/menu.lst

Strange as it may sounds just lexamine the content of the script files is almost enough to understand how to multi-boot!!!
----------------

Replication of NTLDR

boot to a DOS floppy (with fdisk.exe) and type fdisk /mbr or

boot to a XP/Win2k installation CD, drop to recovery console and type fixmbr

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Replication of Linux Lilo or Grub

while inside the Linux type lilo -b /dev/hda3 for replicating Lilo in hda3 partition and omit the "3" if one wants it in the MBR (for the whole disk it is the MBR always))

For Grub type grub-install /dev/hda3 for placing Grub in hda3 and omit the "3" if it is for the MBR.

It goes without say that if /dev/hda is replaced with /dev/fd0 then the boot loader will be replicated in a floppy.

Any Linux can be "change root" to it by another Linux. As one can always boot up a Linux using a live CD that means all unbootable Linux (originally bootable but has just lose its boot loader) can salvaged by the description above.

Although a Linux may support both Grub and Lilo in execution only one bootable script file is kept. Hence one already working with Lilo cannot replicate Grub and vice versa. Some big Linux do provide facilities to switch the boot loader in the desktop.

You can imagine the number of times the MBR has been overwritten in my box with 45+ systems. So no need to be nervous about it.

You can keep XP's MBR untouch as a virgin but XP must be on its separate hard disk like a hdb, hdc, hdd, sda etc. However what is the point if its XP's MBR can be restored by a bootable DOS floppy?