arthurking Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 Hi, elsewhere on these forums I asked about installing mdk10 on a raid setup. After an exhaustive search, I found the hardware is not supported yet. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that I can install mdk10 to re-satisfy my insatiable curiosity. What I'd like to know is, "if I aquire an IDE hard disk and install mdk10 to this and I install the bootloader(LILO) to a floppy, hopefully this will not touch the windows install on the SATA raid setup? and then I set the BIOS to boot from floppy, as IDE0 has linux and SCSI(SATAraid) has windows." Therefore my boot order will be Floppy,SCSIraid,IDE0. Will this setup work? Does anyone know about this stuff? So I guess what I'm asking is, does it matter to LILO (or whatever) that Linux is on IDE0 and windows is on SCSIraid. Remembering that the raid controller is not supported by linux. I don't want to be entering and changing the BIOS everytime I want to change OS. thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feralertx Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 (edited) This info is based on my own experience: if I aquire an IDE hard disk and install mdk10 to this and I install the bootloader(LILO) to a floppy, hopefully this will not touch the windows install on the SATA raid setup? Thats right, you just tell MDK to install the bootloader in /dev/fd0 and it wont touch anything else, I have done this many times. and then I set the BIOS to boot from floppy Yeah. Therefore my boot order will be Floppy,SCSIraid,IDE0. Yes. Will this setup work? IMH opinion and experience, yes. does it matter to LILO (or whatever) that Linux is on IDE0 and windows is on SCSIraid. No. I don't want to be entering and changing the BIOS everytime I want to change OS You wont have to, just insert the floppy whenever you want linux and leave it out when you want window$. I recommend you anyway to wait for a second opinion to back up this. Good luck! Edited April 1, 2004 by feralertx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthurking Posted April 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 Hi feralertx. At first I thought, 'there should be no problems', but then how will the bootloader know if windows is there, as the raid controller should not be recognised as a device or partition or anything! I say this because I already tried to install, but what happened was that when installer went through the routine, It showed 2x76GB and I thought that was strange as I set it up as raid in the bios etc. I presumed at some stage the raid was going to set up something? But It didn't. The only thing that happened was, I presume that mdk10 installed itself, LILO installed to the mbr but was inaccesible because of the raid, and then it wrecked the windows mbr. I fixed that with the fix mbr command off the win install CD, and now I'm back to square 1. No Linux. I know I 'could' go back to 9.2 but that IMHO is regression. And for all those wondering, 'isn't going to windows regression' ? Well yes it is, but its my first raid setup and I spent good money to build this box that way, I sure as hell am going to use raid, even if it kills me! cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feralertx Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 , but then how will the bootloader know if windows is there, as the raid controller should not be recognised as a device or partition or anything! It doesnt need to, the bootloader doesnt need to know, you will start windo$ by removing the floppy so the computer will look for the bootloader as usual (as it does now). I think you are wrong in thinking that Lilo will be the one to start window$, but that wont happen because lilo wont even be executed (since you will remove the floppy when booting up to windows). I presume that mdk10 installed itself, LILO installed to the mbr but was inaccesible because of the raid, and then it wrecked the windows mbr. I fixed that with the fix mbr command off the win install CD, and now I'm back to square 1. No Linux. You can restore the mbr from the MDK CD1 too, since it can be used as a recue CD. The difference between that install of MDK and the one you'll do with the new IDE HD and the floppy is that the bootloader(lilo) will be on the floppy, so if you remove the floppy before the computer boots, itll read the bootloader you are using right now as i stated before. Hope i made myself clear, if not, post qs again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthurking Posted April 2, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 Hi again, and thanks for your replies. I think I confused myself, and probably yourself too! Of course you're correct about lilo not having to recognise the windows install, and booting with the floppy only for booting into Linux. The question I should have asked is will lilo know to boot from ide0 (I'm guessing hda1) because the boot order will have to be Floppy, SCSIraid,IDE0. I can't see why not! but I wanted to reassure myself (wanted you to reassure me!), and I think you've convinced me. See Ya. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feralertx Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 (edited) Hi arthurking, The question I should have asked is will lilo know to boot from ide0 (I'm guessing hda1) because the boot order will have to be Floppy, SCSIraid,IDE0. The lilo bootloader will not look into your bios settings (Floppy, SCSIraid,IDE0) to boot up linux, instead when you install linux in, for example, IDE1 and tell the installer that lilo will reside in /dev/fd0 (the floppy drive), it'll install the bootloader and configure it with the right setting of where the linux installation is, in IDE1 in this example. In other words, lilo or whaever bootloader doesn't care about the BIOS setting of "Floppy, SCSIraid,IDE0". Now imagine you have installed linux in IDE1 and the bootloader in a floppy and you have set the boot sequence to Floppy, SCSIraid,IDE0, so: - The computer boots up, it looks for any bootloader in floppy, as there is one it'll execute lilo, so your BIOS wont look any further for a bootloader since it has already found one. Then lilo starts and you'll see a menu to choose an option from, probably you'll see: Linux Failsafe floppy So you choose 'Linux', and because lilo was set up to find linux on IDE1, itll look for it there. - If your BIOS doenst find a bootloader in Floppy itll continue looking for one in the remaining places, in this case that is SCSI and then IDE0. As itll find one in SCSI (your current window$ installation) itll just fire up window$ and wont look any further (will not look for it in IDE0) So don't get confused by your BIOS' boot up sequence setting and the Operating System Bootloader, since one starts the other but none is a replacement of the other. Hope this helped. Edited April 2, 2004 by feralertx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 I concur with feralertx, it should work fine, I dual (triple/quadruple) boot linux this way: bootflopppy in, one version, bootfloppy out, other version. In your case: bootfloppy in: the bios will start lilo, which knows only about linux, and it will boot that (with any option you choose to give lilo). If the bootfloppy is out of the floppy drive, the bios will go to the next option, which is your raid array, where it will boot windows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthurking Posted April 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2004 Thanks for the reassurances. I'm out to buy a new hdd. cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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