dickohead Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 i have a 50 meg /boot partitoon at the begining of my first hard drive - /hda, the boot partitoon is /hda3. What do i need to put into the /boot folder to allow me to boot two different linux version on two different hard drives? here is the list of things thus far along with my lilo.conf file. /boot boot.0300 grub/ kernel.h-2.6.8.1-8mdksmp System.map-2.6.3-15mdkboot.0303 initrd-2.6.3-15mdk.img map System.map-2.6.8.1-8mdksmp config@ initrd-2.6.8.1-8mdksmp.img message@ us-latin1.klt config-2.6.3-15mdk initrd.img@ message-graphic vmlinuz@ diag1.img kernel.h@ message-text vmlinuz-2.6.3-15mdk diag2.img kernel.h-2.6.3-15mdk System.map@ vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-8mdksmp lilo.conf # File generated by DrakX/drakboot# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file boot=/dev/hda map=/boot/map default="linux" keytable=/boot/us-latin1.klt prompt nowarn timeout=100 message=/boot/message menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.3-15mdk label="linux" root=/dev/hda6 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount acpi=ht splash=silent" vga=791 read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.3-15mdk label="failsafe" root=/dev/hda6 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="failsafe acpi=ht devfs=nomount" read-only other=/dev/hda1 label="windows" table=/dev/hda image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-8mdksmp label="linux_rc1" root=/dev/hdb1 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 splash=silent" vga=794 read-only any help on this would be greatly appreciated, and if it turns out using lilo is a bad idea, i will happily use grub if need be! I also removed lilo from my mbr using: lilo -u and installed it into /dev/hda3 using: lilo -b /dev/hda3 /dev/hda3 being my /boot partition of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris z Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 AFAIK, you wouldn't need to put anything in your current /boot partition. you simply install whatever distro you're thinking of on the other HDD, give it it's own /boot, then edit your current fstab & lilo to mount the new distro (if you want it to be accesible from MDK) & boot into it. you could edit fstab manually for the mounting part, but it's much easier using Mandrake Control Center->mount points->partitions. click on each partition you want to mount, name it, mount it. when you're done, allow it to write the changes to fstab. as for lilo........... open lilo.conf with your favourite text editor, & add an entry for the new distro, making the image= point to the new /boot partition. for example, if you installed DsitroX on hdX & you named it DistroX, your lilo entry would look something like........... image=/dev/hd(X)/DistroX/boot/vmlinuz label="DistroX" root=/dev/hd(X)(number) initrd=/dev/hd(X)/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount splash=silent acpi=ht resume=/dev/hd(X)(number)" vga=788 read-only ............then run lilo -v to make changes stick, reboot. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dickohead Posted October 12, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 okay, i have done as you said, and changed the paths in my lilo file, and mounted my hdb images to a path on hda, now for the reboot test - will let you know in about 5 minutes!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dickohead Posted October 12, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 (edited) okay, no such luck! here is the code for the entry i changed, i am still getting the same errors when trying to boot linux from hdb and if i knew the name and location of the boot error messages file - i could put it here too.... but /var/log/boot.log only has entries from the 4th of october, and today is the 12th.... lilo.conf image=/mnt/hdb1/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-8mdksmp label="linux_rc1" root=/dev/hdb1 initrd=/mnt/hdb1/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 splash=silent" vga=788 read-only this is the entry i have difficulty with - everything else works just fine, but i cannot for the life of me, boot into linux on the second hard drive, from either the mbr, or a/boot partition on my first hard drive.... surely it's not as hard as i am finding it? or is this hard? :unsure: Edited October 12, 2004 by dickohead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris z Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 (edited) i'm getting a bit confused, as to your partition set up. could you please post the partition set up for each hard drive? IE: hdb=/boot/hdb1, /root/hdb2, etc. Chris Edited October 12, 2004 by chris z Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 For that to work, hdb1 must be mounted in the fstab for the distro on hda6 at /mnt/hdb1. Post your fstab for the hda6 distro. Also, after editing lilo.conf, you must run: # lilo -v for the changes to take effect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dickohead Posted October 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2004 (edited) @pmpatrick - i have done that, /dev/hdb1 is mounted at /mnt/hdb1. and i have run lilo -v. @chris_z - my partition setup is thus: /dev/hdb1 - / /dev/hdb2 - swap /dev/hdb3 - /home /dev/hda3 - /boot /dev/hda6 - / /dev/hda7 - swap /dev/hda8 - /home & /dev/hda1 - Win C:\ /dev/hda2 - Win D:\ What i am thinking my problem is, has something to do with what i need in my /boot partition or what i need to tell lilo about my partiton structure. I have searched the internet high and low, and have yet to find anyone else trying to run two linux distributions on two different hard drives...... i didn't think what i was doing was so strange! Edited October 13, 2004 by dickohead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted October 13, 2004 Report Share Posted October 13, 2004 I assume you don't have any sata drives; correct me if I'm wrong. The The newer 2.6 kernels recognize sata drives as scsi devices(/dev/sdax) while the older 2.6 kernels, including the one in mdk10 designated sata drives as ide devices(/dev/hdax). That can cause some problems for bootloaders installed from an older kernel distro booting a new, scsi version kernel distro. If all your hard drives are ide that shouldn't apply. Assuming your hdb distro is using kernel 2.6.8.1-8mdksmp, you had everything you needed to boot it in your hda /boot but your original lilo was misconfigured. It should have looked like this: image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-8mdksmp label="linux_rc1" root=/dev/hdb1 initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.8.1-8mdksmp.img append="devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb2 splash=silent" vga=794 read-only You had two errors assuming your listed partitions are correctly designated. initrd was improperly set for initrd.img which is a link to initrd-2.6.3-15mdk.img. Second, in your append line you have resume set for /dev/hdb5 which doesn't exist according to you. Resume is used in the append line to designate the location of a second swap partition. Note you can make the hdb initrd and vmlinuz available to lilo at boot time by copying them to your hda /boot or referencing them through an hdb1 mount point listed in your hda fstab; it makes no difference and either will work if done properly.. However, in both your lilos, you still have an error on the "resume=/dev/hdb5" when it should be hdb2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dickohead Posted October 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2004 glad to see i have errors!!! That makes things a lot cleare, and i am using standard IDE hard drives. So i need to copy my vmlinuz and initrd files from /hdb1/boot to /hda3/boot and then lilo will boot the correct kernel and thus load linux from /hdb? so there is no need to copy modules or anything over aswell? Because i only made /boot 50MB, and my modules are a lot bigger than that.... i shall alter lilo and place vmlinuz and initrd into my /boot partition on /hda Wish me luck!! many thanks pmpatrick! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dickohead Posted October 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2004 (edited) alrighty! Many thanks to pmpatrick and chris z, i am now successfully in mandrake 10.1 on my second hard drive, the problem all along was this: As you stated pmpatrick, my initrd was incorrect, and devfs was set to mount rather than nomount, but it runs out my partitions are not labled /hdb1,2,3 they are /hdb,1,5,6 ..... it seems my first hard drive is done in very much the same fashion, not to worry! it all works now.... except for an odd error when trying to run almost anything.... "KLauncher could not be reached via DCOP" If you have any ideas on that....... glad to hear them! If not i shall search google tomorrow some time. Many thanks guys, you have been amazing help!!! :D Edited October 13, 2004 by dickohead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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