Windoze are notorious where it is installed. Linux can be real easy and can be moved with minimal change (/etc/fstab /etc/lilo)
On Sun, Jan 27, 2002 at 01:48:34PM -0500, Michael A. Miller wrote: > I have a Debian (testing) machine with a single hard drive that > is the master on the IDE bus. I've chosen to install win98 so > that I can dual boot. I've installed Win98 on a second hard > drive that I installed as the IDE master after unplugging the > original drive. i Bad move. M$ OS are not well behaving when it is installed on 2nd/3rd drives in my previous experience. > Now what I'd like to do is to put the original debian drive in as the > IDE slave and install a boot block so that I can dual boot between > Debian and Win98. As it stands, I can boot Debian or win98 by > jumper'ing the appropriate drive to the IDE master. I'd rather be > able to boot either one by selecting at the boot prompt. Yep. Good move. > My current arrangement is hda = Debian with lilo/mbr and hdb = > Win98. I think that I can dual boot if I can arrange it so that > hda = Win98 with lilo/mbr and hdb = Debian. Whem playing like this, I tend to put lilo in /dev/hda1 while installing debian multiboot mbr or other mbr boot loader on /dev/hda. This way, any stupid program can overwrite mbr and still safe to boot Debian. Well this is hust taste issue :) > Are there any lilo experts who know how to get lilo to write a > boot block to a drive while convincing it that the hard drive IDs > are what they'll be after I rearrange them? This is what you may do (Other combinations are possible but may require more knowledge.) Move Debian installed HDD as /dev/hdb (slave on IDE). Install New HDD as /dev/hda (Master on IDE). Slave master are selected by jumper on the back of HDD. They hang from same IDE cable. Boot with MS boot disk, stop install by F-something. Run FDISK from prompt to create partition as follows: Small (about 10-50MB) MSDOS at the start. (This ensures stupid MS FDISK compatible partition boundary) Shut-off. Boot with Debian boot CD/floppies (Rescue/root) Type "rescue" at boot prompt. (Or press ALT-F2 at menu), to gain shall. At Linux shell run "fdisk /dev/hda". Change type of above created partition (/dev/hda1) to ext2. "sync". Shut-off power. Do normal install (FDISK&FORMAT) of win98 on Master HDD (C:) If it is huge disk (>10GB), you may create another partition 10%-30% for data (D:) so fdisk on them runs faster. Just do not toutch ext2 partition. This get you with working WIN98 on /dev/hda2. /dev/hda has WIN installed MBR. After full install, Shut-off power. Boot with Debian boot CD/floppies (Rescue/root) Type "rescue" at boot prompt. (Or press ALT-F2 at menu), to gain shall. Assume your Debian root partition (One contains /etc) is now located at /dev/hdb1: (For potato boot disk) # cd / # mount /dev/hdb1 /target # cd target/etc # ae lilo.conf # ae fstab # cd / # lilo -r /target # install-mbr /dev/hda -e 12 -i a # umount /target Shut-off power This is painful since "ae" is a BAD editor. (Also not sure you have install-mbr command on root floppies) Easier way is at boot prompt, enter "rescue root=/dev/hdb1". This boots your already configured Debian system. If you have /usr in different partition, few programs may break but you get more functional system than using boot floppies only. Also you can mount those manually. For example "mount /dev/hda5 /usr" if /usr was on /dev/hda5. Then you can edit with "vim" or use "mc" as easy way. In this case, as a root: # cd /etc # vim lilo.conf ... change contents to point to new location. ... Install it to /dev/hda1 # vim fstab ... Adjust it to reflect new configuration. # lilo # man install-mbr # install-mbr /dev/hda -e 12 -i a # shutdown -h now At boot prompt, type 1 or 2 at the prompt. If boot from /dev/hda1 (1), Debian on /dev/hdb1 is booted. (With proper /etc/lilo.conf, you may boot Win98 from here too) If boot from /dev/hda2 (2), windows98 is booted. Some more interesting information on boot / configuration of debian is on http://qref.sourceforge.net/quick/. Above waiste /dev/hda1 for lilo since Debian standard MBR only boot from /dev/hda (As I remember). But if you install LILO as MBR at /dev/hda, you may not need it. But you never know when Windows overwrite it or, some virus detection program may complain. So I tend to install minimalist MBR on /dev/hda while keeping LILO safe in /dev/hda1. Alternative is to install MBR bootloader such as GAG. It is graphical and can boot from /dev/hdb1 directly. Configuration is interactive. See http://www.rastersoft.com/gageng.htm This boot loader can boot any partition including /dev/hdb1 and comes in nice graphics and easy self configuration ability :) Good for personal use. -- ~\^o^/~~~ ~\^.^/~~~ ~\^*^/~~~ ~\^_^/~~~ ~\^+^/~~~ ~\^:^/~~~ ~\^v^/~~~ + Osamu Aoki <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, GnuPG-key: 1024D/D5DE453D + + My debian quick-reference, http://qref.sourceforge.net/quick/ +
