Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
Lyvim Xaphir wrote: On Wed, 2004-09-01 at 03:04, SnapafunFrank wrote: OK. You are teaching me something here but I haven't quite nailed it yet. Re partitions:] /dev/hda1 * 1 125 1004031 83 Linux /dev/hda2 126293722587390 85 Linux extended /dev/hda32938443412024652+ 83 Linux /dev/hda444354870 35021706 FAT16 /dev/hda5 126 250 1004031 83 Linux /dev/hda6 251149610008463+ 83 Linux /dev/hda714971559 506016 82 Linux swap /dev/hda81560280510008463+ 83 Linux /dev/hda928062937 1060258+ 83 Linux and: /dev/hdb1 * 1182714675346c W95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/hdb218281829 16065 83 Linux /dev/hdb318302491 5317515f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/hdb518301841 96358+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb618421853 96358+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb718542263 3293293+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb822642295 257008+ 82 Linux swap /dev/hdb922962491 1574338+ 83 Linux Now I'm lost with the non-FAT' statement. As you can see I have FAT on both HDDs so your reply suggested that I needed to configure things? No, that's not what he was saying. He was just saying that the drive letter C will ONLY be assigned to partitions that winblows stuff understands, and that happens to be restricted to winblows partitions and not non-dos or non-ntfs stuff. Technically you can have a fat anywhere you like. I personally would have done a type c which is Win95 FAT32 in LBA mode. Most of the time that's what win98 chooses for itself. The file system is a little faster and allows for larger partitions. I do recall that when attempting to update to Mandrake 10 that lilo thought that my FAT partitions were windows OS's but I didn't see this when I went ahead with a clean install. I have fought hard with this partition problem for some time and feel that I might be missing something real simple, so forgive me for persevering. Right now everything runs fine in this regard but the next time I go to update or try something different I can see me getting balder. What you probably ought to do is hang with what you have for a bit until you get sorted out and get all your ducks in a row, and then decide what you're layout is going to be based on what you know and what you need. What would be handy is if you could post your /etc/fstab so that I could see how you are mounting these partitions. There's a simple method to layout and then there are more unecessarily complex methods; it seems to me that what you are doing may be a little more complex than it needs to be. LX Well this could well be what it is I need to learn. I've posted the /etc/estab below for you to comment on while I go searching for some knowledge about it. Thanks for pointing it out to me. [EMAIL PROTECTED] frank]# rpm -qa | grep checkinstall checkinstall-1.6.0-0.beta2.1mdk [EMAIL PROTECTED] frank]# cat /etc/fstab /dev/hda5 / ext2 defaults 1 1 /dev/hda1 /boot ext2 iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850 0 0 none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0 /dev/hda8 /home ext2 defaults 0 0 /dev/hdd /mnt/cdrom2 auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec 0 0 /dev/hda3 /mnt/empty ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdb2 /mnt/hdb2_boot ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdb5 /mnt/hdb5_root ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdb6 /mnt/hdb6_var ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdb7 /mnt/hdb7_usr ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdb9 /mnt/hdb9_home ext2 defaults 1 2 none /mnt/removable supermount dev=/dev/sda1,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,nosuid,nodev,kudzu 0 0 none /mnt/removable2 supermount dev=/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-1,kudzu,codepage=850 0 0 /dev/hdb1 /mnt/win_c2 vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850 0 0 /dev/hda4 /mnt/win_h vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/hda6 /usr ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/hda9 /var ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/hda7 swap swap swap 1 2 /dev/hdb8 swap swap defaults 0 0 Looks like it could use a clean out but then I'm not sure what I'm looking at. Catch you soon I hope. -- Regards SnapafunFrank Big or small, a challenge requires the same commitment to resolve. Registered Linux User # 324213 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrakeclub.com
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
Vincent Voois wrote: SnapafunFrank wrote: Unless you have actually tried for yourself, please layoff saying things as if they were fact. As to windows, WinMe ain't so bad once you bash For the fact that i couldn't run half the shit in WinME due to whatever MS invention was in there makes ME a pretty invaluable Win9X environment. (I still had a lot of DOS applications i wanted to run which ME didn't allow anymore and so were many companies having office tools based upon DOS that did not worked (properly) in ME) ME supposed to be the stepping stone to NTFS system but it was lacking tools that were very usefull in Win9X and had things that crapped up various software packages. I couldn't even get Adobe Premiere to run in it, neither could i get bug-free hardware drivers for my pinnacle card for ME (as it did not support a load of other new hardware either which was released after Windows ME) It's a fact that some people like WinME but it's also a fact that WinME was a marketfailure and not only for the reasons i just mentioned. If it works:Congratulations and have fun, but if considering for a new install: VOID it. For one thing it was good for was the silent hint that DOS software-support were about to become a thing of the past. it's face in a bit AND it will run off another HDD without reconfiguring anything AND from a install from Mandrake to boot. Don't believe me: read the following and weep: If you have only a non-FAT or non-NTFS platform on your primary harddrive, your second harddrive will always become C:\. But if you have a Windows system on your primary partitions which shares the same FS as the one on your second harddrive... Generally the msdos.sys holds a line which points to the systemdir. This has never been different, neither in current NT's boot.ini, it's required that the windows system knows where it's systemfolder is, Unless you have no other existing windows environments on your primary harddrive, you will have to configure that and that was my point. OK. You are teaching me something here but I haven't quite nailed it yet. Re partitions:] /dev/hda1 * 1 125 1004031 83 Linux /dev/hda2 126293722587390 85 Linux extended /dev/hda32938443412024652+ 83 Linux /dev/hda444354870 35021706 FAT16 /dev/hda5 126 250 1004031 83 Linux /dev/hda6 251149610008463+ 83 Linux /dev/hda714971559 506016 82 Linux swap /dev/hda81560280510008463+ 83 Linux /dev/hda928062937 1060258+ 83 Linux and: /dev/hdb1 * 1182714675346c W95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/hdb218281829 16065 83 Linux /dev/hdb318302491 5317515f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/hdb518301841 96358+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb618421853 96358+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb718542263 3293293+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb822642295 257008+ 82 Linux swap /dev/hdb922962491 1574338+ 83 Linux Now I'm lost with the non-FAT' statement. As you can see I have FAT on both HDDs so your reply suggested that I needed to configure things? I do recall that when attempting to update to Mandrake 10 that lilo thought that my FAT partitions were windows OS's but I didn't see this when I went ahead with a clean install. I have fought hard with this partition problem for some time and feel that I might be missing something real simple, so forgive me for persevering. Right now everything runs fine in this regard but the next time I go to update or try something different I can see me getting balder. -- Regards SnapafunFrank Big or small, a challenge requires the same commitment to resolve. Registered Linux User # 324213 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrakeclub.com
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
SnapafunFrank wrote: OK. You are teaching me something here but I haven't quite nailed it yet. Re partitions:] /dev/hda1 * 1 125 1004031 83 Linux /dev/hda2 126293722587390 85 Linux extended /dev/hda32938443412024652+ 83 Linux /dev/hda444354870 35021706 FAT16 /dev/hda5 126 250 1004031 83 Linux /dev/hda6 251149610008463+ 83 Linux /dev/hda714971559 506016 82 Linux swap /dev/hda81560280510008463+ 83 Linux /dev/hda928062937 1060258+ 83 Linux and: /dev/hdb1 * 1182714675346c W95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/hdb218281829 16065 83 Linux /dev/hdb318302491 5317515f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/hdb518301841 96358+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb618421853 96358+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb718542263 3293293+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb822642295 257008+ 82 Linux swap /dev/hdb922962491 1574338+ 83 Linux Now I'm lost with the non-FAT' statement. As you can see I have FAT on both HDDs so your reply suggested that I needed to configure things? I do recall that when attempting to update to Mandrake 10 that lilo thought that my FAT partitions were windows OS's but I didn't see this when I went ahead with a clean install. I have fought hard with this partition problem for some time and feel that I might be missing something real simple, so forgive me for persevering. Right now everything runs fine in this regard but the next time I go to update or try something different I can see me getting balder. Your FAT16 on your HDA4 seems to me in the middle of your Linux partitions, not that this should matter but if it is not being detected by your W95 bootpartition to me the only way it seems so is that the partition-table has some extra or missing mark to keep it undetected from Windows environment. (I can understand if this FAT16 partition was written specifically for and under Linux then this would be a security measure). But trust me that if you would have created this /dev/hda4 FAT16 entry on the table under DOS or Windows, it would have become C: and when your w95 platform boots up from your /dev/hdb1, it gets stuck as soon as it wants to start win.com because it probably isn't even there on this c:\windows, or if it is, it may output incorrect DOS version or himem not loaded or something similar since your /dev/hdb1 will become d:. Then there is this matter or partitions being primary or extended (and) logical. You can't boot from a logical device, but you can place your OS there if you configure your environment variables in your boot-files where this OS is located. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrakeclub.com
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
Vincent Voois wrote: SnapafunFrank wrote: OK. You are teaching me something here but I haven't quite nailed it yet. Re partitions:] /dev/hda1 * 1 125 1004031 83 Linux /dev/hda2 126293722587390 85 Linux extended /dev/hda32938443412024652+ 83 Linux /dev/hda444354870 35021706 FAT16 /dev/hda5 126 250 1004031 83 Linux /dev/hda6 251149610008463+ 83 Linux /dev/hda714971559 506016 82 Linux swap /dev/hda81560280510008463+ 83 Linux /dev/hda928062937 1060258+ 83 Linux and: /dev/hdb1 * 1182714675346c W95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/hdb218281829 16065 83 Linux /dev/hdb318302491 5317515f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/hdb518301841 96358+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb618421853 96358+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb718542263 3293293+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb822642295 257008+ 82 Linux swap /dev/hdb922962491 1574338+ 83 Linux Now I'm lost with the non-FAT' statement. As you can see I have FAT on both HDDs so your reply suggested that I needed to configure things? I do recall that when attempting to update to Mandrake 10 that lilo thought that my FAT partitions were windows OS's but I didn't see this when I went ahead with a clean install. I have fought hard with this partition problem for some time and feel that I might be missing something real simple, so forgive me for persevering. Right now everything runs fine in this regard but the next time I go to update or try something different I can see me getting balder. Your FAT16 on your HDA4 seems to me in the middle of your Linux partitions, not that this should matter but if it is not being detected by your W95 bootpartition to me the only way it seems so is that the partition-table has some extra or missing mark to keep it undetected from Windows environment. (I can understand if this FAT16 partition was written specifically for and under Linux then this would be a security measure). But trust me that if you would have created this /dev/hda4 FAT16 entry on the table under DOS or Windows, it would have become C: and when your w95 platform boots up from your /dev/hdb1, it gets stuck as soon as it wants to start win.com because it probably isn't even there on this c:\windows, or if it is, it may output incorrect DOS version or himem not loaded or something similar since your /dev/hdb1 will become d:. Then there is this matter or partitions being primary or extended (and) logical. You can't boot from a logical device, but you can place your OS there if you configure your environment variables in your boot-files where this OS is located. Hmmm. First I had WinMe then using Mandrake9.1 I was able to repartiton the HDD for dual booting. Having got 9.1 settled I had to make a choice, dump WinMe and use the space for Linux storage or start again with another HDD. I still needed windows for autocad at the very least so went with another HDD. I used Mandrake 9.2 to install then partition some of the partitions you see on hda today, and I included a FAT partition for file sharing. NB here that I had simply relegated the windows HDD to slave without doing any configuring of anything. I had great problems when I tried to update to Mandrake 10 it never really took, so I back-up'ed and went for the clean install. Using the installation tools I further split up hda and though everything works fine my first confusion started with the number of partitions now available to me. My understanding was a max of 4 primary with one being further split to 4 logical, a total of 7 usable partition less one for swap. My table shows that, but it is frustrating when the tools mentioned earlier suggested I could have more. Now, when I tried to go the update route with Mandrake10, lilo showed me boot options for partitions that had no OS on them, ie the FAT partitions. Yet when I did a clean install I didn't strike this problem? I am missing something here because all the info and help I see out there suggests that I should have seen the same problem even with a clean install. As to the opening thread here, if you get strange boot options with lilo [ assuming you are using lilo of course ] then don't bother with them. Once you get things settled simply remove those 'false' entries from within /etc/lilo.conf and as root issue: #/sbin/lilo. Keep doing this until you get no errors as lilo re-configures itself. The lilo I posted earlier is a good one so use it for some examples to get your own preferences sorted. Note Well. Do not test lilo with a reboot until you get no errors with # /sbin/lilo Unlike windows there is no need to reboot
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
On Wed, 2004-09-01 at 03:04, SnapafunFrank wrote: OK. You are teaching me something here but I haven't quite nailed it yet. Re partitions:] /dev/hda1 * 1 125 1004031 83 Linux /dev/hda2 126293722587390 85 Linux extended /dev/hda32938443412024652+ 83 Linux /dev/hda444354870 35021706 FAT16 /dev/hda5 126 250 1004031 83 Linux /dev/hda6 251149610008463+ 83 Linux /dev/hda714971559 506016 82 Linux swap /dev/hda81560280510008463+ 83 Linux /dev/hda928062937 1060258+ 83 Linux and: /dev/hdb1 * 1182714675346c W95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/hdb218281829 16065 83 Linux /dev/hdb318302491 5317515f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/hdb518301841 96358+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb618421853 96358+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb718542263 3293293+ 83 Linux /dev/hdb822642295 257008+ 82 Linux swap /dev/hdb922962491 1574338+ 83 Linux Now I'm lost with the non-FAT' statement. As you can see I have FAT on both HDDs so your reply suggested that I needed to configure things? No, that's not what he was saying. He was just saying that the drive letter C will ONLY be assigned to partitions that winblows stuff understands, and that happens to be restricted to winblows partitions and not non-dos or non-ntfs stuff. Technically you can have a fat anywhere you like. I personally would have done a type c which is Win95 FAT32 in LBA mode. Most of the time that's what win98 chooses for itself. The file system is a little faster and allows for larger partitions. I do recall that when attempting to update to Mandrake 10 that lilo thought that my FAT partitions were windows OS's but I didn't see this when I went ahead with a clean install. I have fought hard with this partition problem for some time and feel that I might be missing something real simple, so forgive me for persevering. Right now everything runs fine in this regard but the next time I go to update or try something different I can see me getting balder. What you probably ought to do is hang with what you have for a bit until you get sorted out and get all your ducks in a row, and then decide what you're layout is going to be based on what you know and what you need. What would be handy is if you could post your /etc/fstab so that I could see how you are mounting these partitions. There's a simple method to layout and then there are more unecessarily complex methods; it seems to me that what you are doing may be a little more complex than it needs to be. LX Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrakeclub.com
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
On Wed, 2004-09-01 at 04:42, SnapafunFrank wrote: Hmmm. First I had WinMe then using Mandrake9.1 I was able to repartiton the HDD for dual booting. Having got 9.1 settled I had to make a choice, dump WinMe and use the space for Linux storage or start again with another HDD. I still needed windows for autocad at the very least so went with another HDD. I used Mandrake 9.2 to install then partition some of the partitions you see on hda today, and I included a FAT partition for file sharing. NB here that I had simply relegated the windows HDD to slave without doing any configuring of anything. I had great problems when I tried to update to Mandrake 10 it never really took, so I back-up'ed and went for the clean install. This is not at all an unusual experience. Using the installation tools I further split up hda and though everything works fine my first confusion started with the number of partitions now available to me. My understanding was a max of 4 primary with one being further split to 4 logical, a total of 7 usable partition less one for swap. There are three types of partitions, primary, extended and logical. There are numerous filesystem subtypes but the three partition types always remain the same. The number of primary partitions slots is always four. An extended partition always takes up a primary partition slot. Since the number of primary partitions is greatly limited, and since Linux works perfectly with logical partitions(while needing more *total* partitions than dumber os's, which typically only need one), it's better to put mdk installs inside extended partitions on logicals and keep the primaries for your winblows stuff. You can have a maximum of 12 logical partitions inside any single extended partition before fdisk barfs. Linux does not need a primary partition, and I have seen linux primary partitions get hosed during winblows installs. On the other hand I have never seen a linux installation get hosed if all it's partitions were logical on a dual boot box. My table shows that, but it is frustrating when the tools mentioned earlier suggested I could have more. Now, when I tried to go the update route with Mandrake10, lilo showed me boot options for partitions that had no OS on them, ie the FAT partitions. Yet when I did a clean install I didn't strike this problem? That's not really a problem. Why would you think that it was? MDK doesn't scan for the OS files, it just types the partition and makes the assumption that it is bootable. I don't really see any use in MDK scanning for other operating system files beyond partition level boot related stuff; that's way outside it's venue AFAIAC. I am missing something here because all the info and help I see out there suggests that I should have seen the same problem even with a clean install. If this is what I think you are talking about then yes you would and no it's not really a problem, unless I don't understand what the problem really is. Just for clarification, what is it that you perceive as the problem? Anyway, here is a good layout example. I posted another contribution on this earlier in this thread, I helpfully suggest that you check it out. In the meantime for convenience, here is a one drive layout: [EMAIL PROTECTED] elx]# fdisk -l /dev/sda Disk /dev/sda: 160.2 GB, 160226334720 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19478 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device BootStart EndBlocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 4462 35840983+ 85 Linux extended /dev/sda5 1 6 48132 83 Linux /dev/sda6 793698796 83 Linux /dev/sda794 160538146 82 Linux swap /dev/sda8 161 307 1180746 83 Linux /dev/sda9 308 902 4779306 83 Linux /dev/sda10 903 4462 28595668+ 83 Linux /dev/sda2 * 4463 7961 28113718+ 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda3 7962 19478 92510302+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA) sda5 = boot sda6 = root sda7 = swap sda8 = tmp sda9 = usr sda10 = var Boot-root are special cases, don't take up much room, and therefore have a minimal impact on the prime real estate at the drive spindle; and boot speed is my main reason for putting them there, besides there being an old under-the-1024 cylinder OS boot rule that I still subconsiously respect for some reason. Swap is first in line to take advantage of spindle real estate; followed by /tmp. You definitely want swap to have the best seat in the house, with /tmp following a close second. Generally you want to put partitions that have the shortest file lifetimes closer to the spindle and partitions that have files with the longest file lifetimes out towards the edge of the platter. /usr has long file lifetimes and thus as you see above is an exception to the latter speed rule, but I put it
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
JRH wrote: Hi all, Bit of a good one this! I have 2 HDD's in my machine, and I want to boot from both Drives. My main drive (/dev/hdc) is where LiLo is installed. On my main drive, I have: hdc1: Windows 98SE, hdc5: /root, hdc7: /usr, hdc8: /home. The second drive, contains Windows ME (dont ask!!), and DiskDrake sees it as /dev/hda, and LiLo sees it as hda1. In theory, all looks like it should work. But it dont! When I boot, I select Win ME in LiLo, then I get a boot failure message (something along the lines of invalid boot disk, please replace and hit any key to retry- looks like it's BIOS initiated.) Swop the drives over, and it will boot into ME fine, so the OS is intact etc. Any Ideas?? or am I just hoping for too much? :-( JRH Dunno much about ME but it's probably the case, as with 98, that in order to boot, it needs to be installed on the first sector of the Master HD. This would explain why it boots up when you swap the drives. (Interesting experiment: - swap the drives then try to boot 98SE. If it fails then I'm probably right about this.) Never heard of a way round this although there are smarter people than me on this list so you never know. -- Graham Watkins Don't be lucid and ironic; people will turn this against you to show that you aren't a nice person. - Albert Camus Registered Linux user number 265254 http://counter.li.org Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrakeclub.com
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
Vincent Voois wrote: Asa Rossoff wrote: When I boot, I select Win ME in LiLo, then I get a boot failure message (something along the lines of invalid boot disk, please replace and hit any key to retry- looks like it's BIOS initiated.) Swop the drives over, and it will boot into ME fine, so the OS is intact etc. Any Ideas?? or am I just hoping for too much? :-( JRH Windows expects to boot from the first drive in the system (which it will always call C:). I believe there are ways to trick it into booting from other drives. I haven't tried it. Smart Boot Manager can do this by (I think) having the bios report the drives in a swapped fashion. SBM is at http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/ Right as well as wrong. First of all, the Bios always searches the first IDE drive for the boot-sector and simple executes it and whatever bootmanager is on there, it will do the rest. Unless there is an option in the Bios to change bootpriority for IDE drives, you won't be able to change this fact. I understand that. Smart Boot Manager can be installed to the boot sector of the real first drive, and when you select a Windows/Dos partition on the Second drive, it can be configurered to make Win/Dos think that the second drive is 1st, and the first drive is 2nd. SBM is not a kernel loader, so you still need a kernel loader for linux (I think it has to be installed on a supersector or something like that if you have SBM on track 0... there are instructions with SBM. It could also go on the boot sector of the second hardddrive.) Second, Windows boots from the first boot-device, but it can be configured to have it's OS on another drive by altering the MSDOS.INI and in case of WinNT 4.x, 5.x you can alter the BOOT.INI to set the drive and startup-path where the os is stored. If your bootmanager on the primary IDE drive allows you to boot from the second drive, you can install all of the Windows data on there but in the win9x/ME cases you for sure have to modify the system settings to make it boot properly. I didn't realize Win98 and Me had a similar boot config file to NT/XP. It looks like it's actually msdos.sys on Win98 at least, rather than msdos.ini. Since he is running both 98 and Me, on seperate drives and partitions, and using Lilo to select them (currently), in theory he could just edit the msdos.ini (or msdos.sys) file on his WinMe partition (second drive) to indicate that the OS is on drive D: -- it might work. BUT, he would have to reinstall WinMe while the drive is recognized as D: (if the WinMe installer allows it) or do some major registry, shortcut and config file hacking. IMHO:Ditch WinME, it's really not worth the trouble, either install '98SE or XP, but Win'98 is currently less vulnerable to virusses these days as most viruses dedicates themselves to NT5.x exploites (XP/2000/2003). Asa Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrakeclub.com
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
On Tue, 2004-08-31 at 12:14, Asa Rossoff wrote: JRH wrote: Hi all, Bit of a good one this! I have 2 HDD's in my machine, and I want to boot from both Drives. My main drive (/dev/hdc) is where LiLo is installed. On my main drive, I have: hdc1: Windows 98SE, hdc5: /root, hdc7: /usr, hdc8: /home. The second drive, contains Windows ME (dont ask!!), and DiskDrake sees it as /dev/hda, and LiLo sees it as hda1. In theory, all looks like it should work. But it dont! When I boot, I select Win ME in LiLo, then I get a boot failure message (something along the lines of invalid boot disk, please replace and hit any key to retry- looks like it's BIOS initiated.) Swop the drives over, and it will boot into ME fine, so the OS is intact etc. Any Ideas?? or am I just hoping for too much? :-( JRH Now I do my dual OS - dual HDD soulution with W2k, and it works like a charm: Lilo and linux on HDD1, w2k mbr OS on HDD2. Lilo can boot either OS, and both drives can boot without the other drive's mbr. But back in the days of W98, I had w98 mbr OS on HDD1, and lilo lin on HDD2, and I had a boot floppy to boot the system with. I know. Boot floppy? In the 21st century? This way though, if I took one HDD home with me (I did that a lot), I could boot up from the other one without any hassle. I never really used the floppy drive for anything else, so at least it wasn't redundant. cheers Andras Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrakeclub.com
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
Asa Rossoff wrote: Vincent Voois wrote: Asa Rossoff wrote: When I boot, I select Win ME in LiLo, then I get a boot failure message (something along the lines of invalid boot disk, please replace and hit any key to retry- looks like it's BIOS initiated.) Swop the drives over, and it will boot into ME fine, so the OS is intact etc. Any Ideas?? or am I just hoping for too much? :-( JRH Windows expects to boot from the first drive in the system (which it will always call C:). I believe there are ways to trick it into booting from other drives. I haven't tried it. Smart Boot Manager can do this by (I think) having the bios report the drives in a swapped fashion. SBM is at http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/ Right as well as wrong. First of all, the Bios always searches the first IDE drive for the boot-sector and simple executes it and whatever bootmanager is on there, it will do the rest. Unless there is an option in the Bios to change bootpriority for IDE drives, you won't be able to change this fact. I understand that. Smart Boot Manager can be installed to the boot sector of the real first drive, and when you select a Windows/Dos partition on the Second drive, it can be configurered to make Win/Dos think that the second drive is 1st, and the first drive is 2nd. SBM is not a kernel loader, so you still need a kernel loader for linux (I think it has to be installed on a supersector or something like that if you have SBM on track 0... there are instructions with SBM. It could also go on the boot sector of the second hardddrive.) Second, Windows boots from the first boot-device, but it can be configured to have it's OS on another drive by altering the MSDOS.INI and in case of WinNT 4.x, 5.x you can alter the BOOT.INI to set the drive and startup-path where the os is stored. If your bootmanager on the primary IDE drive allows you to boot from the second drive, you can install all of the Windows data on there but in the win9x/ME cases you for sure have to modify the system settings to make it boot properly. I didn't realize Win98 and Me had a similar boot config file to NT/XP. It looks like it's actually msdos.sys on Win98 at least, rather than msdos.ini. Since he is running both 98 and Me, on seperate drives and partitions, and using Lilo to select them (currently), in theory he could just edit the msdos.ini (or msdos.sys) file on his WinMe partition (second drive) to indicate that the OS is on drive D: -- it might work. BUT, he would have to reinstall WinMe while the drive is recognized as D: (if the WinMe installer allows it) or do some major registry, shortcut and config file hacking. IMHO:Ditch WinME, it's really not worth the trouble, either install '98SE or XP, but Win'98 is currently less vulnerable to virusses these days as most viruses dedicates themselves to NT5.x exploites (XP/2000/2003). Asa Unless you have actually tried for yourself, please layoff saying things as if they were fact. As to windows, WinMe ain't so bad once you bash it's face in a bit AND it will run off another HDD without reconfiguring anything AND from a install from Mandrake to boot. Don't believe me: read the following and weep: # File generated by DrakX/drakboot # WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file boot=/dev/hda map=/boot/map default=windows keytable=/boot/us.klt prompt nowarn timeout=200 message=/boot/message menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw image=/boot/vmlinuz263 label=linux263 root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd263.img append=noapic devfs=mount acpi=ht splash=silent vga=788 read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz263 label=linuz263NNet root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd263.img append=noapic devfs=mount acpi=ht splash=silent nonetworking=yes vga=788 read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz263 label=linux-nonfb263 root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd263.img append=noapic devfs=mount acpi=ht splash=silent read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz267 label=linux267 root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd267.img append=noapic devfs=mount acpi=ht splash=silent vga=788 read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz263 label=failsafe263 root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd263.img append=failsafe noapic acpi=ht devfs=nomount read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz267 label=failsafe267 root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd267.img append=failsafe noapic acpi=ht devfs=nomount read-only other=/dev/hdb1 label=windows table=/dev/hdb map-drive=0x80 to=0x81 map-drive=0x81 to=0x80 image=/boot/vmlinuz267 label=linux-nonfb267 root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd267.img append=noapic devfs=mount acpi=ht splash=silent read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz2422 label=2422-21 root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd2422.img append=noapic devfs=mount acpi=ht splash=silent read-only image=/boot/memtest-1.11.bin label=memtest-1.11 None of the original was configured br myself, I only added the extra kernel stuff
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
On Mon, 2004-08-30 at 14:26, JRH wrote: Hi all, Bit of a good one this! I have 2 HDD's in my machine, and I want to boot from both Drives. My main drive (/dev/hdc) is where LiLo is installed. On my main drive, I have: hdc1: Windows 98SE, hdc5: /root, hdc7: /usr, hdc8: /home. The second drive, contains Windows ME (dont ask!!), and DiskDrake sees it as /dev/hda, and LiLo sees it as hda1. In theory, all looks like it should work. But it dont! When I boot, I select Win ME in LiLo, then I get a boot failure message (something along the lines of invalid boot disk, please replace and hit any key to retry- looks like it's BIOS initiated.) Swop the drives over, and it will boot into ME fine, so the OS is intact etc. Any Ideas?? or am I just hoping for too much? :-( JRH First some basics: There is a current mythology running around these days that Winblows (be it me or xp or 98 or whatever) must have a partition at the beginning of the drive. This is patently false and I want to debunk this old wives tale right now, I'm tired of seeing it. Second, the prime real estate for any drive is at the beginning of the drive, not the end. If a Linux installation is put at the end then you are most likely depriving your MDK of some prime real estate. Third, most bioses these days allow you to choose which drive you boot from. The installation trick with me, XP, or whatever is to boot your MDK installation disk #1 into it's install routine, and get the installation program to the point where you see the partition layouts at the install screen. I know about the rescue disk option but I've done extensive work both ways, and it turns out that for low level maintenance, an install boot is handier than a rescue disk boot. An MDK install boot to the partitioning step makes a better rescue disk than the rescue disk. Once you see that screen, you do ctrl-alt-f2 and that puts you in a console screen, with all filesystem modules loaded that you need for that box. After you do that, use fdisk to set up all your partitons, including the Windows one. What I do is allocate an extended partition first, the size I want the linux install to be. It would look like this: [EMAIL PROTECTED] elx]# fdisk -l /dev/sda Disk /dev/sda: 160.2 GB, 160226334720 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19478 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device BootStart EndBlocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 4462 35840983+ 85 Linux extended /dev/sda5 1 6 48132 83 Linux /dev/sda6 793698796 83 Linux /dev/sda794 160538146 82 Linux swap /dev/sda8 161 307 1180746 83 Linux /dev/sda9 308 902 4779306 83 Linux /dev/sda10 903 4462 28595668+ 83 Linux /dev/sda2 * 4463 7961 28113718+ 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda3 7962 19478 92510302+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA) sda5 = boot sda6 = root sda7 = swap sda8 = tmp sda9 = usr sda10 = var Boot-root are special cases, don't take up much room, and therefore have a minimal impact on the prime real estate at the drive spindle; and boot speed is my main reason for putting them there, besides there being an old under-the-1024 cylinder OS boot rule that I still subconsiously respect for some reason. Swap is first in line to take advantage of spindle real estate; followed by /tmp. You definitely want swap to have the best seat in the house, with /tmp following a close second. Generally you want to put partitions that have the shortest file lifetimes closer to the spindle and partitions that have files with the longest file lifetimes out towards the edge of the platter. /usr has long file lifetimes and thus as you see above is an exception to the latter speed rule, but I put it where it is for reasons of program load speed. There's always an exception to the rule. ;) Note that I have given NTFS and Win98 primary partitions and I have put Linux inside a type 85. The reason for that is that Winblows is less likely to screw with the tables of a non-dos partition that it does not understand, and a type 85 has historically fallen within that category. Note also that I have put these partitions at the end of the drive; that is because they simply have the lowest priority. ;) Note also that there is no primary partition for Linux. This is simply because of symmetry and also because of the fact that Linux doesn't need one. MDK can operate completely within an extended partition shell with no problem and it is preferable to do it this way for many reasons. Retain your primary partition entries (which are very limited in number) for dumber stupider OS's like XP, ME, or 98se. Now the trick. After partitioning layout is done you start your winblows installation; do not install MDK. You tell your bios to boot from the winblows drive after you have done all your partitioning setup with
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
On Monday 30 August 2004 11:14 pm, Asa Rossoff wrote: Windows expects to boot from the first drive in the system (which it will always call C:). I believe there are ways to trick it into booting from other drives. I haven't tried it. Smart Boot Manager can do this by (I think) having the bios report the drives in a swapped fashion. SBM is at http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/ Not totally correct. Windows NT, 2000, XP can all boot from drives other than C: or the first drive in the system. 16 bit versions or versions that contain 16 bit legacy code, such as 95, 98, ME, etc. will only boot from the C: drive. Now, the BIOS will expect to find a boot loader on the hard drive that you tell it is the primary boot device, but that can be any drive in the system, not necessarily the first one. -- Bryan Phinney Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrakeclub.com
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
SnapafunFrank wrote: Unless you have actually tried for yourself, please layoff saying things as if they were fact. As to windows, WinMe ain't so bad once you bash For the fact that i couldn't run half the shit in WinME due to whatever MS invention was in there makes ME a pretty invaluable Win9X environment. (I still had a lot of DOS applications i wanted to run which ME didn't allow anymore and so were many companies having office tools based upon DOS that did not worked (properly) in ME) ME supposed to be the stepping stone to NTFS system but it was lacking tools that were very usefull in Win9X and had things that crapped up various software packages. I couldn't even get Adobe Premiere to run in it, neither could i get bug-free hardware drivers for my pinnacle card for ME (as it did not support a load of other new hardware either which was released after Windows ME) It's a fact that some people like WinME but it's also a fact that WinME was a marketfailure and not only for the reasons i just mentioned. If it works:Congratulations and have fun, but if considering for a new install: VOID it. For one thing it was good for was the silent hint that DOS software-support were about to become a thing of the past. it's face in a bit AND it will run off another HDD without reconfiguring anything AND from a install from Mandrake to boot. Don't believe me: read the following and weep: If you have only a non-FAT or non-NTFS platform on your primary harddrive, your second harddrive will always become C:\. But if you have a Windows system on your primary partitions which shares the same FS as the one on your second harddrive... Generally the msdos.sys holds a line which points to the systemdir. This has never been different, neither in current NT's boot.ini, it's required that the windows system knows where it's systemfolder is, Unless you have no other existing windows environments on your primary harddrive, you will have to configure that and that was my point. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrakeclub.com
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
On Tue, 2004-08-31 at 04:29, Asa Rossoff wrote: Vincent Voois wrote: Asa Rossoff wrote: snip Second, Windows boots from the first boot-device, but it can be configured to have it's OS on another drive by altering the MSDOS.INI and in case of WinNT 4.x, 5.x you can alter the BOOT.INI to set the drive and startup-path where the os is stored. If your bootmanager on the primary IDE drive allows you to boot from the second drive, you can install all of the Windows data on there but in the win9x/ME cases you for sure have to modify the system settings to make it boot properly. I didn't realize Win98 and Me had a similar boot config file to NT/XP. It looks like it's actually msdos.sys on Win98 at least, rather than msdos.ini. Since he is running both 98 and Me, on seperate drives and partitions, and using Lilo to select them (currently), in theory he could just edit the msdos.ini (or msdos.sys) file on his WinMe partition (second drive) to indicate that the OS is on drive D: -- it might work. BUT, he would have to reinstall WinMe while the drive is recognized as D: (if the WinMe installer allows it) or do some major registry, shortcut and config file hacking. IMHO:Ditch WinME, it's really not worth the trouble, either install '98SE or XP, but Win'98 is currently less vulnerable to virusses these days as most viruses dedicates themselves to NT5.x exploites (XP/2000/2003). Asa I'm not at all sure you guys have a good understanding of what msdos.sys does. Msdos.sys doesn't have jack to do with the boot process; that is set at windows installation time. The only thing that msdos.sys does is set the path for windows; it merely tells windows where to look for it's binaries (dll exe etc). The true motherload of drive relevant information resides in the registry. Msdos.sys merely sets environment variables; that's all. Another thing to realize is that at it's core, msdos.sys is truly a dos artifact and NOT a windows artifact. Dos loads first and then winblows gets loaded by the dos environment, depending on what dos tells it to do by virtue of the parameters in msdos.sys. Also, msdos.sys was not always a text file. In Dos version 6.22 it was binary and was actually part of three components of the operating system. (I include the command interpreter in that number.) Subsequently in dos 7.00 it was kept for some wierd compatibility reasons, but changed to a parameter text file. Dos 7.10 kept that convention. Barring reinstallation it is very problematic to mess around with the msdos.sys file path line. You still have a bazillion inf and registry entries to deal with if there is a drive change. Much better to reinstall. Having said that there's alot of stuff you can do with msdos.sys. For instance: -- [Paths] WinDir=C:\USR\98R2 WinBootDir=C:\USR\98R2 HostWinBootDrv=C [Options] AutoScan=0 BootDelay=0 BootWarn=0 BootGUI=0 BootKeys=1 BootMenu=1 BootMenuDelay=2 BootMulti=1 DoubleBuffer=0 DblSpace=1 DrvSpace=0 LoadTop=0 Logo=0 ; ;The following lines are required for compatibility with other programs. ;Do not remove them (MSDOS.SYS needs to be 1024 bytes). ;xa ;xb ;xc ;xd ;xe ;xf ;xg ;xh ;xi ;xj ;xk ;xl ;xm ;xn ;xo ;xp ;xq ;xr ;xs DisableLog=0 WinVer=4.10. -- Why the funky nonstandard path? Once upon an age ago I was experimenting with wine and 98se under Linux. But in any case, as some examples, looking above you can see where you can keep the logo from being displayed or you can have the system boot you directly into dos and then
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
JRH wrote: Hi all, Bit of a good one this! I have 2 HDD's in my machine, and I want to boot from both Drives. My main drive (/dev/hdc) is where LiLo is installed. On my main drive, I have: hdc1: Windows 98SE, hdc5: /root, hdc7: /usr, hdc8: /home. The second drive, contains Windows ME (dont ask!!), and DiskDrake sees it as /dev/hda, and LiLo sees it as hda1. In theory, all looks like it should work. But it dont! When I boot, I select Win ME in LiLo, then I get a boot failure message (something along the lines of invalid boot disk, please replace and hit any key to retry- looks like it's BIOS initiated.) Swop the drives over, and it will boot into ME fine, so the OS is intact etc. Any Ideas?? or am I just hoping for too much? :-( JRH Windows expects to boot from the first drive in the system (which it will always call C:). I believe there are ways to trick it into booting from other drives. I haven't tried it. Smart Boot Manager can do this by (I think) having the bios report the drives in a swapped fashion. SBM is at http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/ Asa Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrakeclub.com
Re: [newbie] Dual Boot Dual HDD
Asa Rossoff wrote: When I boot, I select Win ME in LiLo, then I get a boot failure message (something along the lines of invalid boot disk, please replace and hit any key to retry- looks like it's BIOS initiated.) Swop the drives over, and it will boot into ME fine, so the OS is intact etc. Any Ideas?? or am I just hoping for too much? :-( JRH Windows expects to boot from the first drive in the system (which it will always call C:). I believe there are ways to trick it into booting from other drives. I haven't tried it. Smart Boot Manager can do this by (I think) having the bios report the drives in a swapped fashion. SBM is at http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/ Right as well as wrong. First of all, the Bios always searches the first IDE drive for the boot-sector and simple executes it and whatever bootmanager is on there, it will do the rest. Unless there is an option in the Bios to change bootpriority for IDE drives, you won't be able to change this fact. Second, Windows boots from the first boot-device, but it can be configured to have it's OS on another drive by altering the MSDOS.INI and in case of WinNT 4.x, 5.x you can alter the BOOT.INI to set the drive and startup-path where the os is stored. If your bootmanager on the primary IDE drive allows you to boot from the second drive, you can install all of the Windows data on there but in the win9x/ME cases you for sure have to modify the system settings to make it boot properly. IMHO:Ditch WinME, it's really not worth the trouble, either install '98SE or XP, but Win'98 is currently less vulnerable to virusses these days as most viruses dedicates themselves to NT5.x exploites (XP/2000/2003). Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrakeclub.com
