Dual boot over 2 HDDs

Pierce · 10-26-2003, 06:14 PM

Hey!

I have 2 HDDs. A 40gb and a 13gb. I had WinXP installed on my 40gb HDD and decided to install slack on my 1gb hdd. LILO replaced the windows boot loader on my 40gb, but I ended up having to remove it (I had to reinstall windows

).

So now I can only access WinXP.

I'd like to know is there some code I can add to the boot.ini file to allow me to boot to linux on my second HDD, or would I need to install linux again? Is LILO needed?

Any help is appreciated!

Pierce.

g00$e · 10-26-2003, 06:35 PM

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+NT-Loader.html

DarknessX · 10-26-2003, 06:41 PM

I wouldn't advise that so much as just using a boot disk to get back to linux, and as root running 'lilo'. I think that the howto there would be overly complex.

Re-running lilo will rewrite your boot table and should make linux a choice again.

Of course if you NEED to use windows' boot loader, go right ahead and follow that howto :-D

DarknessX · 10-26-2003, 06:51 PM

whoops, one thing I forgot: Use a bootdisk to get to a shell

Mount your linux drive wherever you need to, chroot, then run lilo: i.e.

Code:

mkdir /mnt/linux
mount /dev/hdXY /mnt/linux/ #it's probably hdb1, b = 2nd HDD, 1 = 1st partition.
chroot /mnt/linux
lilo

If all goes well, you should get a "added windows" "added linux" message, or something to that effect.

Pierce · 10-26-2003, 07:14 PM

What happens when I say:

I dont have a floppy drive! (Kind of bent a pin on my motherboard and cant get the floppy IDE cable into it!)...

Thanks :'(

Misel · 10-26-2003, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pierce
What happens when I say:

I dont have a floppy drive! (Kind of bent a pin on my motherboard and cant get the floppy IDE cable into it!)...

Thanks :'(

it's either a floppy OR a an IDE cable (IDE xor floppy in binary terms

)

Anyway, the installation discs of slackware have always been bootable since I started (with v8.1) ... so yeah, use that one instead

Pierce · 10-26-2003, 07:27 PM

*cries*

I'm such a linux n00b! I'd love to just give up on linux now (even though this is my first attempt at trying to see what its like)!

Am I right in saying there is now easy way to edit the boot.ini file to point to the hdb as a boot device? MUST I have LILO installed? If so, will I lose the win xp boot loader?

When I installed slackware 9, I was asked if I wanted to use LILO on my primary HDD. I said yes, but it never detected windows xp which was already on it, so I ened up losing windows and had to reinstall it which is how I lost LILO.... man I confused!

Misel · 10-26-2003, 07:52 PM

Calm down, it's not that bad. You don't have to reinstall an operating system when you lost the master boot record (unless you crashed the partition table but that's another story).

You have to decide which bootloader you want to use. Either LILO or the Windows Boot Loader. How you enable the Windows Boot Loader to load Linux is well described in the link posted above.

However I suggest using LILO simply because it's easier to maintain and you will probably change it more often once you start baking your own kernels - something you will hardly do with Windows

.

So I hope you haven't started reinstalling Slackware yet.

Take your Slackware installation Disk and boot the PC from it. When it asks you for boot parameters DO NOT hit enter like you did at the beginning of the installation but write "mount root=/dev/hdb2" or whereever you have installed your Linux root partition.

Then your Slackware will be booted just like normal only with a kernel from the CD which shouldn't make any difference for you right now.

So you get your login and you log in as root.

If you use KDE then start it and go into the control center -> System Administration -> Bootmanager (LILO).

There is even an autodetection that will be able to detect your windows and Linux automagically and install it for you in a way that works.

If you like to edit the /etc/lilo.conf manually then here are the lines that work for my windows 2000:

other=/dev/hde3
label="Windows"

just change the partition to your need and it should be fine. Don't forget to run "lilo" afterwards

.

reboot and you're done

-----
If you want your Windows Boot Loader back then you can do that with the installation disk of WinXP (unless it's some weird form of recovery version, I guess) and boot from that and select the repair console. There are two commands that will repair the MBR for you to get the boot loader back. Type help to see the list of possible commands - they should be obvious - I just don't know them by heart.

wyat · 10-26-2003, 08:06 PM

You could try going into your motherboard bios and tell it to boot the 13 gig hard drive. That is how I change between winxp and slackware. I don't know if this will work if lilo is not installed on the linux partition. Worth a try.

DarknessX · 10-26-2003, 08:11 PM

He has lilo on the comp -- he had it working until he reinstalled XP

He "should" only have to run lilo again to make it work

Pierce · 10-27-2003, 02:26 PM

Thanks misel will try that. I do remember another prob I had though.

Command line linux worked fine for me before, however when I typed xstart to start, linux went to start except my monitor turned off! I know I have to config linux but cant remember what exactly to type to do it. xfree 86 or something?

Thanks again,

Pierce.

DarknessX · 10-27-2003, 04:22 PM

try 'xf86config' [as root]

The reason your monitor is going dark is most likely because you have the resolution set too high. Make sure you set it according to the specs on your vidcard/moniter before setting up X. Also, note that the command is 'startx', not 'xstart'

Pierce · 10-27-2003, 04:44 PM

yeah, xf86config is what I was looking for.

Anyway, back to me trying to access linux on my second HDD. I did as Misel said and booted off my slackware cd and typed in:

bare.i mount root=/dev/hdb1

The installation cd continued as usual. I wasn't logged into linux on my HDD, I was just as normal on the CD like when you're setting up linux. So I haven't been able to test xf86config. Any ideas why?

Also, is it possible to install LILO anotherway? Through a CD? Or even a 3rd party boot device for linux and windows? I actually think using LILO is a good idea, I just dont want to lose everything on my windows HDD now, after spending the last 2 days getting it back the way I want it.

DarknessX, my screen didn't go black, it powered off. I take it linux didnt recognise my graphics card, hence why I have to run the config...

Thanks again,

Pierce

Misel · 10-28-2003, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pierce
yeah, xf86config is what I was looking for.

Anyway, back to me trying to access linux on my second HDD. I did as Misel said and booted off my slackware cd and typed in:

bare.i mount root=/dev/hdb1

The installation cd continued as usual. I wasn't logged into linux on my HDD, I was just as normal on the CD like when you're setting up linux. So I haven't been able to test xf86config. Any ideas why?

Also, is it possible to install LILO anotherway? Through a CD? Or even a 3rd party boot device for linux and windows? I actually think using LILO is a good idea, I just dont want to lose everything on my windows HDD now, after spending the last 2 days getting it back the way I want it.

DarknessX, my screen didn't go black, it powered off. I take it linux didnt recognise my graphics card, hence why I have to run the config...

Thanks again,

Pierce

that is very weird.

Maybe you can do that with Knoppix but I'm not sure how to do that. :S

Pierce · 10-29-2003, 12:33 PM

I think I'm going to give up on slackware. For some reason the installer & LILO dont pick up my windows partition so I'd be in a loop and it's really annoying.

Unless, can someone tell me will this work:

Install Slack 9.1
Replace the MBR with LILO
Open lilo.conf and manually add the lines to boot windows.

Will this work? I did this before, except I went to repair windows and it restarted the machiene and couldn't get into the repair sequence. I then added the extra lines to boot windows, windows booted but died after the loading screen. I'm hoping this is because I did a repair which basically failed...

Otherwise, I may go with Knoppix, I have a bootable Linux CD with that and it's really slick! Slackwares install and such is just too basic and open for errors for my liking... ;'(