Re: Dual Booting (Part II)

["Robert G. Brown" <bob@xxxxxxx>]

>After securing a copy of System Commander, I was assured
>it would handle my dual-boot woes without trouble.
Smooth move. System Commander is a fine product; I've been using
it over a year w/o problems, booting into Linux, DOS/Win 3.11 and NT.

>Here's a refresher:
>Running Win98 on my primary (6.4 gig) hard drive.
>Running Linux on my secondary (2.5 gig) hard drive.
>Seperate hard drives here, not one big one.
Now, are they on the same cable and controller? I'll assume YES
and go on, and I'm going to stay away from all those other
questions about BIOS seetings and like that, since you've seen
those answers

>Someone told me all they had to do was edit /etc/lilo.conf
>and change the first line where it says
>boot = /dev/hda
>to now read
>boot = /dev/hdb1
Someone was right, IF your second drive is on the same cable.

>Then, run lilo and I should be all set.
As far as booting is concerned, I'd think so....

>He said he didn't have to change /etc/fstab...just that
>boot line in the lilo.conf
But I'm not sure about this at all! If your fstab entry is:
/dev/hda2   /usr {and so on}.....
and that device becomes /dev/hdb, I'd edit it. Perhaps that person
knows more about the kernel and filesystems than I, but in MY ignorance
it would get edited.

>Before I attempt to do this....
>(1) Does it *sound* like it should work?  LILO will NOT be my boot
>loader...
Yes, this is consistant with the System Commander instructions, and
with the main purpose of lilo, which is to boot linux (with some 
choices).

>(2) If I change this, is it possible to un-change it?...
Yes, and one thing you can do is sit down and read the System Commander
manual. It's a good one and is well thought out. If you think you under-
stand it, read it AGAIN... then you'll KNOW IT! :) I did, and I'm pleased
with the results.

>Opinions, anyone?
Yes... 
  - Browsers are NOT part of the Operating System! :)
  - The only group less sensible than the House Judiciary Committee is the 
    NBA players and Owners, and if they traded places I don't know if there 
    would be any improvement! :)

>Okay, it's failing miserably.  Here's why:
>Every time I want to boot Linux, I have to physically
>take the case off of my hard drive, move the jumper
>on the Linux drive from "slave" to "single".
Stop it! Set the drive with Linux jumpered as the secondary (for some reason
Microsoft still insists on occupying the first partition on a master drive; 
everyone else is a more flexible citizen). Then keep yer cotton-pickin'
hands out of that case, and if you don't I'm coming over to put sealing 
wax on the screw heads that hold the cover on, so we can all tell! :)

The only way you will become found is to reduce the number of variables.

>I made the change to the very first line of lilo.conf,
>where it says:
>boot=/dev/hda
>to read
>boot=/dev/hdb1
>I ran lilo, and it said:
>'/dev/hbd not configured'
>Of course, since I'm *only booting the Linux hard
>drive*, it has itself (the Linux hard drive) as
>/dev/hda, my cdrom as /dev/hdb, and so on and
>so forth.
Righto, you've diagnosed the problem. Now seal that cover and open
that Sys Comm reference manual. And turn off the system and read....

You have two problems:

    1. You've got to configure and run lilo so it boots off /dev/hdb1

    2. You've got to get System Commander to recognize that Linux is insta-
       lled on that secondary drive.

We solve these problems in order:

    1. Boot your system with a Linux rescue disk.
       - Connect up to that partition on the secondary drive...
         Got an /mnt directory? If not, make one! : mkdir /mnt
         Got a /mnt/disk directory? If not, make that, too! : mkdir /mnt/disk
         Now, mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/disk
       - Make sure that partition is bootable by running fdisk and looking
         at that:
         /mnt/disk/sbin/fdisk /mnt/disk
         Change ONLY if you need to.
       - Edit lilo.conf; using the vi editor on the hard drive:
         /mnt/disk/bin/vi /mnt/disk/etc/lilo.conf
       - This might be a good chance to edit /etc/fstab:
         /mnt/disk/bin/vi /mnt/disk/etc/fstab
       - Now, run lilo:
          /mnt/disk/sbin/lilo -C /mnt/disk/etc/lilo.conf
       
       I'd be surprised if this didn't work. Shut down your system.

    2. Start up your computer. If System commander does not detect a new
       OS (Linux on that secondary disk), you can go into Setup and rub its
       nose in it.

Let us know what happens....
                                                             ---> RGB <---