boot up problem

[Guest ammark]

I just switched to Linux, and for my first try chose the 2005LE for install. Previously I used to run WinXP off one hard disk. Before installing Linux, I deleted the partitions on that and tried booting that hard drive alone once to see if the boot sector or drives were still active with windows XP. The prompt showed that it couldnt find an OS and so I assumed that the MBR was clean. I plugged it in as primary slave and then installed Mandriva on my newer Primary Master hard drive.

 

After completing installation, the Bootloader screen showed that Lilo would give the option of loading Windows from /hdb1... I didnt notice too carefully then and assumed that maybe Lilo is giving me some open options. So after rebooting (post-install) the computer, instead of booting from primary master MBR (Lilo), started loading WinXP and then showed me the Command Center DOS boot screen since it couldnt find any OS/Windows. And then I rebooted the PC and it did the same thing instead of going to LILO.

 

I unplugged that that hard disk (/hdb) and then rebooted the PC to find mandrake loading smoothely, with the initial LILO prompt giving me the choice for Windows on /hdb1. Now I have two questions regarding this:

 

I´m assuming that the MBR on /hdb still retains WinXP boot files, however, there isnt any drive on it (I havent formatted it, just created one Fat32 partition in the first half of the disk). Now how do I a. get rid of this WinXP bit off the MBR and keep my pc loading LILO instead of that Windows XP thing.

 

Iḿ also planning to Install WinXP on /hda8 with /hdb wholly as a backup drive. In that occasion what would I have to do to firstly load LILO only, and secondly, point LILO to my Windows install on /hda8 (instead of /hdb1 as it shows now) so that I can choose which OS to load every time I start my pc?

 

On another note... a few packages (realplayer, doxygen, aspell-sth and some language files) were not installed during mandriva setup since the files were corrupt. I did a hard disk install. Now I´d also like to update those missing packages, especially realplayer. How would I do that? I tried it off urpmi (giving in the ftp server addresses), but this is what it ended with:

 

##

examining hdlist file [/var/cache/urpmi/partial/hdlist.realplayerjpackage.cz]

examining pubkey file of "realplayerjpackage"...

...imported key c431416d from pubkey file of "realplayerjpackage"

performing second pass to compute dependencies

 

examining hdlist file [/var/lib/urpmi/hdlist.Installation DVD (disk1).cz]

built hdlist synthesis file for medium "Installation DVD (disk1)"

examining hdlist file [/var/lib/urpmi/hdlist.Installation DVD (disk2).cz]

built hdlist synthesis file for medium "Installation DVD (disk2)"

examining hdlist file [/var/lib/urpmi/hdlist.Installation DVD (disk3).cz]

built hdlist synthesis file for medium "Installation DVD (disk3)"

examining hdlist file [/var/lib/urpmi/hdlist.Installation DVD (disk4).cz]

built hdlist synthesis file for medium "Installation DVD (disk4)"

examining hdlist file [/var/lib/urpmi/hdlist.Installation DVD (disk5).cz]

built hdlist synthesis file for medium "Installation DVD (disk5)"

examining hdlist file [/var/lib/urpmi/hdlist.Installation DVD (disk6).cz]

Segmentation fault (core dumped)

##

 

Hope someone can help me with these. Thanks.

[polemicz]

Welcome to the board.

 

A couple of questions: 1) when you did the reboot that brought up Windows it sounds as though you did not get the Lilo screen, is that correct? 2) when you installed did you specify putting the bootloader on the MBR? You may have put it on the first sector of the Linux rot partition.

 

When you did your installation how did you set up your partition table? If you use custom partitioning you can see just how hdb1 is set up.

[Guest ammark]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, when I try booting my computer with my primary slave hard disk plugged in, I do not get the Lilo screen, instead the winXp boot up screen comes up.

 

2ndly, I think you are correct... I do not recall specifying where the boot record should be placed when I installed mandrake... bootloader shows ¨boot device¨ as being ¨/dev/hda¨. However, /hda1 is not my root drive. (Before moving to Mandriva I had tried reading through Installing Debian where it was advised that a 5-10MB ¨boot¨ partition be made where the boot files should be. Accordingly thats what I did and mounted that partition as boot). Is that what is causing the error? how would I fix this?

 

Thanks a lot for your help.

[arctic]

umm... as far as i can see, you do have two harddisks. hda and hdb. when you plug in hdb, the win bootloader shows up. this can be caused by two things:

first, when you wiped the harddisk, you seem to have forgotten that deleting partitions does not erase the mbr, too. it will be still there. you have to format the mbr manually again. but that should not be the biggest trouble.

the important thing is: what are your bios settings for booting and what are your harddisks set as? it sounds to me that hdb is set with jumpers for master drive. thus it will be the default booting device, if hda is set as slave. you can define the boot-procedure in your bios almost always, so check, which hdd is set as primary and which one as secondary boot device. and maybe you should just play around with jumpers ;)

 

what you can do alternatively is to throw in the cds, boot up, press f1 for advanced options and reinstall the bootloader. thus it should install it on hdb, where you still have the winxp bootloader andgive you a proper dual-boot.

Edited April 27, 2005 by arctic

[Guest ammark]

Thanks arctic. However I dont understand what you mean about the jumpers. the only way I could keep hdb as slave was to place the jumper on the slave pins. Otherwise without the jumpers or cable select it either conflicts with hda or becomes master by default (but that could be due to the wrong parallel cable being plugged in too I guess). As for hda... that drive for some reason becomes slave by default without jumpers. Since hda is the larger capacity disk, I wanted it to be master and hdb as a backup drive. Same thing with Bios setup, the selection is according to how I want it. But thanks for your suggestion, I should check the BIOS boot device order... I dont know for sure how the hard drives/IDE selections are given now. If all else fails Iĺl try booting the install disks and putting the bootloader on hda.

 

However, would you be able to tell me how I can properly clear out the boot sector either from DOS prompt (I´m thinking of booting off a Win98 startup disk ...Iḿ not very familiar with getting these things done on Linux yet) or Linux?

 

Really appreciate your help

[Guest ammark]

Okay... great... I found the problem to be in BIOS Boot setup. It was set at Ide-1 and not Ide-0. I corrected it and restarted my pc.... voila, the Mandrake Lilo screen showed up. Now a few more questions, sorry:

 

I have hda8 (or in bootloader terms, hda7 I think) as a FAT32 drive, and it used to show (and still does) under /mnt as /windows. Now with my new hard drive plugged in (apparently there is a 20G Fat32 Partition there ...which I dont recall formatting, but placing in the partition table) how is linux going to show me the different drives? ......but hang on, let me try formatting it as FAT32 and then restart mandrake to see how it identifies the drive. Will update :unsure:

[polemicz]

FYI: for Lilo hda1 is hda1, Grub numbers from 0.

[arctic]

I have hda8 (or in bootloader terms, hda7 I think) as a FAT32 drive, and it used to show (and still does) under /mnt as /windows. Now with my new hard drive plugged in (apparently there is a 20G Fat32 Partition there ...which I dont recall formatting, but placing in the partition table) how is linux going to show me the different drives? ......but hang on, let me try formatting it as FAT32 and then restart mandrake to see how it identifies the drive. Will update  :unsure:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

it depends on the distro you use. mandriva will (i think i remember this correctly, if not, please correct me) automatically mount windows fat32 partitions. they will be stored unter /mnt, where each partition will get a separate folder, e.g. /mnt/windows1 /mnt/windows2.

 

anyway, if it doesn't automount them after formatting them, a simple command will mount them temporarily or altering your /etc/fstab file will mount them permanently. we can guide you through that process, if you need assistance. :)

[Guest ammark]

Thanks all, its more or less fixed I think. I read through another thread and decided to reinstall my windows xp on hdb instead of hda1 because of possible bootloader conflicts. I'm optimistic things'll work. Thanks arctic, for pointing out the obvious... the bios boot up order was the key. But in case anything goes wrong, I'll post again for help

[polemicz]

You should have no bootloader conflicts with Win on hda1. Before doing a Windows re-install what is your current partition table on hda and hdb?

[Guest ammark]

You should have no bootloader conflicts with Win on hda1. Before doing a Windows re-install what is your current partition table on hda and hdb?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

its quite long actually, but suffice to say everything´s the way I want it. boot order is done fine... my mandrake is on hda, and winxp on hdb... and lilo lets me choose, and loads the respective OS'without any problem. Ive just been having a bit of trouble installing windows sp2 and some packages on mandriva, but I think I can take care of those. Thanks everyone :-)