Re: Dual Boot

[Bruce Smith <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Thank you . Yes I have installed Linux a couple of times . I wasn't sure
> about this situation though , so I figured I'd better ask the experts before
> wasting a lot of time . I didn't realize that Lilo would write to the mbr on
> C: , referencing what in dos would be D: . Oh that's just too slick !

Sure, LILO's MBR can boot linux from the second, third, fourth ...  hard drive.

Some other OS's have a limitation that they have to be on the first hard drive,
and the system partition has to be marked "active".  Linux does not have this
limitation.  Linux doesn't care what hard drive holds the root partition, and 
Linux ignores the "active" partition flag.

> So my assumption is that , in Linux D: becomes HDA2 ?

No.  The first two characters are the drive type.
   HD = IDE hard drive.  SD = SCSI hard drive.  FD = Floppy drive. ...

The third character is the hard drive number.
   i.e.  A = first hard drive,  B = second,  C = third, ...

The fourth (last) character is the partition number.

Examples:

hda2  =  FIRST IDE hard drive, partition number TWO.
hdb3  =  SECOND IDE hard drive, partition number THREE.
sdd7  =  FOURTH SCSI hard drive, partition number SEVEN.

--------------------------------------------
Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
http://www.armstrong-intl.com/
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