Is this boot possible...

Boffy · 08-05-2005, 11:38 AM

My computer isnt taking kindly to having lilo or GRUB because my bios will only see the first hard drive in my setup and all the linux partitions are on the second. If i try to put lilo or GRUB on the MBR of the first hard disk all hell breaks loose.

Can I install lilo or GRUB on a bootable CD and then when the computer boots with that CD in I am taken to my hard disk version of linux allowing me to removed the CD from that point onwards.

Thanks in advance

Boffy

homey · 08-05-2005, 12:01 PM

Yes that works quite well on my boxes. I made links to the kernel and initrd so I don't have to remake the cdrom every time the kernel gets updated. You just need to redo the link on your system. For example, here is what my current FC4 kernel and link looks like...

Code:

lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root      28 Aug  2 13:47 initrd.img -> initrd-2.6.12-1.1398_FC4.img
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  762852 Jul 15 01:19 System.map-2.6.12-1.1398_FC4
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root      25 Aug  2 13:47 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.6.12-1.1398_FC4

Now onto making the grub boot cdrom . My Fedora system is on /dev/hdb2 so you can change that to your needs.

Code:

cd /home
mkdir -p iso/boot/grub
cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /home/iso/boot/grub
cp /boot/grub/stage* /home/iso/boot/grub
cp /boot/grub/iso9660_stage1_5 /home/iso/boot/grub

mkisofs -R -b boot/grub/iso9660_stage1_5 -no-emul-boot \
-boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o grub.iso iso

Change the menu.lst from ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet to root=/dev/hdb2 rhgb quiet

	color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
title *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* CDROM BOOT MENU *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*
root (hd0)
title Windows
	rootnoverify (hd0,0)
	chainloader +1
title Fedora Core
	root (hd1,1)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz ro root=/dev/hdb2 rhgb quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd.img

cdrecord -v speed=4 dev=0,0,0 -data grub.iso