I guess I'll take a crack at this one! :0) So here goes.
Having had one of my machines set up as a Dual boot at one point, I've
encountered several different things. I've also installed different
distros, but I'll try and stick with the Mandrake info here.
First of all let's start with the hard drives and how they are set up.
Linux and Windows set up the HDD differently. for example, two hard
drives, each with two partitions. You would think that in Windows that
it would go as follows:
X-zibit A
HDD 1
Partition 1 -- C:
Partition 2 -- D:
HDD 2
Partition 1 -- E:
Partition 2 -- F:
But that's not *always* the case! At one point that Dual boot was only
Windows with drives C through G. Well C, E, and F were on HDD 1 and D &
G were on HDD 2. I simply gave up using tools to rename them. But it
ended up looking like this.
X-zibit B
HDD 1
Partition 1 -- C:
Partition 2 -- E:
Partition 3 -- F:
HDD 2
Partition 1 -- D:
Partition 2 -- G:
Linux, I think, handles how it sets that up a bit better. For example
in the case of the example I used above about HDD1 and HDD2, it will
give those HDDs the name of /dev/hd and then the a,b,c, so on for which
HDD it is. So in Linux, X-zibit A would then translated to:
X-zibit C
HDD 1
Partition 1 -- /dev/hda1
Partition 2 -- /dev/hda2 (possibly to /dev/hda5)
HDD 2
Partition 1 -- /dev/hdb1
Partition 2 -- /dev/hdb5
Now I'm not entirely sure why it gives the second partition to HDD2 as
/dev/hdb5, but I've noticed that a lot on different Linux distros. So I
can't explain that.
Having explained that, Linux is kind of picky about where it's boot
information is. That's the MBR which would be on HDD 1 in your instance
as well as /boot which should be on the first 1024 sectors of HDD 2.
I've tried putting that /boot and install Linux on what would be
/dev/hda2 from X-zibit C, drive D: from X-zibit A, it won't boot at all.
LiLO gives you nothing because it doesn't recognize how it's set up. So
it forces you to use the first partition on the second drive.
You could, in making your dual boot systems, install Windows on the
HDD1, then install Linux on HDD2. Making that drive bootable and go
into the BIOS each time you boot and tell it to boot from HDD1 or HDD2.
Which is possible and I know people that do that. But you lose the
chance of accessing data on that Windows partition which is
automatically supermounted when Mandrake boots. (Caldera will do this as
well.)
It's always best to set your swap as the last part of your HDD.
Normally the swap is twice the size of what your RAM is. (128 MB RAM,
256 MG Linux Swap) If you put the /swap at the end of the HDD it
doesn't cause any problems with where is /boot, or things of that
nature.
So, from what I can gather, you want to have a dual boot system, with
out the use of a floppy. So you will install Windows on HDD1, make sure
you fdisk /mbr just to be sure before you start the Linux install. The
install Linux on HDD2. Installing / on /dev/hdb1 and then /home on
/dev/hdb5. You may also want to partition it differently, and DiskDrake
can do all of that for you if you would like. I normally go through and
set that up myself.
After you run the install, install everything on the second HDD, install
the boot information on /dev/hda1, which it will default to in the
install. Remove all bootable media, reboot, and you should see the
stage1, stage2 then offer you a menu which will give you windows,
floppy, linux and some other options. I normally go and in an edit the
boot information in the install and remove the floppy option. Since if
you boot from the floppy, you wouldn't see that menu anyway! I don't
see the point in leaving it in there, but others could agrue reasons to
keep it.
Well, I think that's a start at least. And hopefully this didn't add to
the confusion of it all, but hopefully this will be found as helpful
tdh
T. Holmes
Unixtechs.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Real Men use Vi."
* Dave Linsalata <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [010401 21:47]:
| Hello,
|
| Well it's been two hours since I got Mandrake up, and, despite hundreds of
| "how do I's" and "why doesn't this work" floating around in my head, I'm
| loving it! But I have a problem. And I need help (please:))
|
| *skip down for meat of question...keep reading if you know win98...the below
| data /could/ apply to my main question*
|
| My old setup was thus:
| Hard Drive 1 - partitioned into 2 HDs, of which one was pseudo-partitioned
| using partition magic into swap and ext2 space.
| Hard Drive 2 - 500 megs compressed into 800 megs.
| The letter was C and D for 1, and E (with the compressed host on H)
| (F and G are CD and CD-RW drives)
|
| Now, after installing Mandrake, my setup is thus:
| Hard drive 1 - same partitions, but for some reason letters are now C and E)
| Hard drive 2 - now letter D, and has 1.97 gigs free (apparently) with my
| data sitting in a "drivespace.000" hidden file
|
| I understand that this is a mandrake list, but I wanted to throw this out to
| people and see if they knew what to do (oh, and have I mentioned the win98
| system control panel won't let me re-assign the drive letters?:))
|
| **MORE IMPORTANT QUESTION**
| I can't dual boot. Lilo can't install (understandable b/c I assume it is
| past the cylinder barrier.) BUT, when I try to bootup w/o my mandrake boot
| disk, I get
| "Reading DMI Pool Information...." <--------this is normal
| "Stage 1" <--------a lot like the mandrake
| startup, eh
| *freeze* <--------this is not normal;)
|
| So, I fdisk /mbr'ed, and viola! ...same thing happens. doh!
| I have tried playing around with my bios, but using other driver letters
| does not work. Since the "Stage 1" resembles an awful lot the beginning of
| a linux boot, I'm suspecting that LILO is stuck on there somehow...how do I
| get rid of it?! PLEASE help:)
|
| Much thanks in advance!
| -Dave
