FoulPlay Posted August 31, 2005 Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 I downloaded the Mandrake 10.1 Official DVD, burned it and had it use some unpartitioned free space on one of my drives...no problems, installed fine. At the end of the installation the last step is to reboot, I did so....boot straight to Windows....ok(?). After trying over and over again I finally managed to get the LiLo bootloader up so I could select the OS to boot. I boot into KDE and start looking around and getting a feel for it. Anyway now I'm back configuring the boot loader cause it's not working exactly how I want it. I had LiLo (Graphical Interface) selected and boots to "/dev/hdc" (more on that in a moment) with a 10 second delay at first. Now I want to make some changes to it because it's not quite what I want. Firstly I changed the boot delay to 30 seconds and applied the settings but the bootloader now had a 6 second delay...right, it was 10, then when I changed it to 30 the bootloader auto-selects in 6 seconds...go figure. Not the problem at hand though. I click next, Modify the Windows boot and select it as default. I assume the "Default" OS is the one it will auto load to if one is not manually selected, no? At any rate it still defaults to Mandrake despite the default being set to Windows and I need to change that. Anyway here may lie some useful information. The boot loader lets me pick from the following partitions: /dev/hdc /dev/sda /dev/hdc2 /dev/hdc5 /dev/hdc7 /dev/fd0 Right now I have it set "/dev/hdc" FYI. Don't ask me why, that's what it was set at default. So could someone give me some pointers here or please slap me with the Common Sense stick? Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted August 31, 2005 Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 Reinstall LILO (or even better GRUB) at your root ( / ) partition, not the MBR, and use that one to dualboot: gag.sourceforge.net Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jboy Posted August 31, 2005 Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 Sounds like you're editting /etc/lilo.conf directly. You could also do this using the Mandriva Control Center Tool (MCC), available from Menu -> System -> Configuration -> Configure Your Computer -> Boot In /etc/lilo.conf, for some strange reason and I don't know why, the timeout number needs a trailing zero. So, if you want 30 seconds, you put in 300 for the timeout value. If you want 60 seconds, put in 600, etc. And I think it adds a few seconds on to whatever you put in -> that's why you were getting 6 seconds instead of 3 when you put in 30. On the default setting, you use the label for the OS you want booted. So, for example, if the lilo section for windows is: other=/dev/hda1 label="windows" table=/dev/hda then the default line should be: default="windows" If this doesn't work, post your /etc/lilo.conf, and someone should be able to help out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoulPlay Posted August 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 Reinstall LILO (or even better GRUB) at your root ( / ) partition, not the MBR, and use that one to dualboot:gag.sourceforge.net <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thank you scarecrow. I have some questions though. I'm fresh out of boot when it comes to Linux. Can I just go into the KDE System configuration and change it to grub from there? And as far as the "boot" variable (Where I can select from the available partitions), does that specify the "Primary" OS? Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoulPlay Posted August 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 Sounds like you're editting /etc/lilo.conf directly. You could also do this using the Mandriva Control Center Tool (MCC), available from Menu -> System -> Configuration -> Configure Your Computer -> Boot In /etc/lilo.conf, for some strange reason and I don't know why, the timeout number needs a trailing zero. So, if you want 30 seconds, you put in 300 for the timeout value. If you want 60 seconds, put in 600, etc. And I think it adds a few seconds on to whatever you put in -> that's why you were getting 6 seconds instead of 3 when you put in 30. On the default setting, you use the label for the OS you want booted. So, for example, if the lilo section for windows is: other=/dev/hda1 label="windows" table=/dev/hda then the default line should be: default="windows" If this doesn't work, post your /etc/lilo.conf, and someone should be able to help out. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hello jboy. No, I havent manually editted that file, I've just been using the MCC. Does "/dev/sda" represent my SATA Partition? Because I have my XP Pro installation on that one. With that that I assume "/dev/hdc" is my Mandrake partition? Please excuse my ignorance. I'm fairly well versed in Windows but this is my first experience with Linux. If it's helpful I will post that file (I'm pretty sure I can find it, lol) Thanks for your time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted August 31, 2005 Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 No... the proper way to use grub is using urpmi and "urpmi grub", and then using MCC, AKA Mandrake Control Center (assuming that you do use Mandriva) to set the bootloader. LILO needs running /sbin/lilo after modifying your boot record, while gurb doesn't. Grub also offers interactive boot, while LILO doesn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoulPlay Posted August 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 No... the proper way to use grub is using urpmi and "urpmi grub", and then using MCC, AKA Mandrake Control Center (assuming that you do use Mandriva) to set the bootloader.LILO needs running /sbin/lilo after modifying your boot record, while gurb doesn't. Grub also offers interactive boot, while LILO doesn't. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> *sigh* and just when I thought I've reach the peak of my frustration... What is uprmi? I'm really really trying to get a grasp of Linux. I'd consider myself a smart individual but this is totally beyond my understanding thus far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jboy Posted August 31, 2005 Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 Does "/dev/sda" represent my SATA Partition? Because I have my XP Pro installation on that one. With that that I assume "/dev/hdc" is my Mandrake partition?What is uprmi? OK, I think we need to step back a minute. You're currently using the lilo bootloader; scarecrow is suggesting that you instead install the grub bootloader and set up booting with that. So, at this point, I'm going to try to address your questions above and then we see where we go from there. Based on what you've posted, /dev/sda represents your SATA drive. When lilo shows /dev/sda in it's list of options, it's referring to installing the lilo bootloader on the Master Boot Record (MBR) of that SATA drive. Likewise, /dev/hdc would mean that lilo is to be installed on the MBR of your IDE drive. Which one does the system boot from? I assume it's the SATA drive, but you may have selected the IDE drive in the BIOS. Now as far as your linux root (or / ) partition, from what you've posted that is probably on /dev/hd5 (the first logical drive in the extended partition on your IDE drive). But you also have /dev/hd7 (the 3rd logical drive in the ext. partition), so it's possible it could be that. You can see all your partitions on all your drives by opening a terminal, and then as the root user, issuing the command: fdisk -l Now what is urpmi? Uprmi is Mandriva's software installation/update tool that underlies the MCC graphical software installation/update tool. If you use urpmi, you do it from the command line as the root user. Here is some good info on urpmi: https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtop...498entry85498 Next, let me mention one thing about what I said in a previous post about the lilo timeout. The part I mentioned about the trailing zero in the timeout parameter applies only if you are editting lilo.conf directly. Since you're using MCC to configure lilo, you put in the actual seconds you want and it will take care of writing it to lilo.conf. Now, where do you go from here? Scarecrow is suggesting that you install grub and use that to manage dual booting between linux and windows and has mentioned a couple advantages that it has. So he is saying to go to a command line as the root user and enter the command: urpmi grub That will install the grub package. Then he is saying to go to MCC and configure the boot loading to use grub instead of lilo. Hope that helps some. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoulPlay Posted September 1, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2005 I appreciate you guys being so patient with me. Thank you. jboy, in response to your post. Yes my SATA Drive is my Primary drive. My current setup has My SATA drive as one partition and that is used soley for Windows XP. I also have a IDE drive which was initially had two partitions, one I use a a storage drive and the other I installed Mandrake on. I will try your suggestions and see where that leaves me. I still am curious about one thing though. In the MCC there is an option called 'boot' and lists all the partitions. Which one should I be selecting in this case. When all is said and done I want to specify Wndows as the primary OS (so that when the computer is turned on and an OS is not manually selected it will boot WinXP after the countdown). Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jboy Posted September 1, 2005 Report Share Posted September 1, 2005 Well, since you asked, I will give you advice based on the approach I would take - but it may be controversial and you will may get sharply different advice from others. At this point, I suggest you leave your current Windows XP boot loader alone and not try to overwrite it with lilo or grub. If I were you, I would have the lilo or grub boot loader written to a floppy diskette, /dev/fd0. Then when you want to boot into linux, you do so from the floppy. Get your feet wet with that first. It's not clear to me how serious you are about linux, how often you plan to use it. It sounds like XP is your main OS and you're kind of experimenting with linux and trying to learn it. At this stage, I would not risk messing around with changing the MBR of the SATA drive. Get comfortable with linux first, get familiar with what you're doing and why, get some solid experience with linux, then think about writing the boot loader to your hard drive if that's what you want to do. Before you overwrite the MBR of that SATA drive, ask yourself these questions: (1) Do I have the XP CD so that I can use it to reset the MBR if necessary; (2) do I know how to do that, (3) do I have a Windows boot floppy configured so that I can boot Windows from it if I bork the MBR while installing lilo or grub, (4) do I know how to recover the drive's partition table if I bork it. Note that although an option of the Mandriva install CD rescue mode is to restore the Windows boot loader, I have had that fail on me and therefore had to the use the original XP install CD. As I said, you'll get different advice on this one. The advice I'm giving you is what I consider to be the most fail-safe situation for you right now, and it is the advice that I personally would take in your situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoulPlay Posted September 1, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2005 (edited) Thank you for your suggestions, but I think I'd still rather boot these regularly. Once I adapt to the learning curve I hope to use Linux and my primary OS. My roomate however isn't all that well versed in computers in general but he understand the basics with Windows (downloading spyware, trojans, etc lmao ;] ) so I want to make the "Turn on the computer" experience as easy as possible for him. Losing everything is not a big deal for me if it does happen. Trial and error taught me everything I know with Windows so I'm fine with using the same tactics for Linux. Everything that's important to me is backed up to DVD's anyway. So what do you suggest about that "boot" value. Edited September 1, 2005 by FoulPlay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoulPlay Posted September 1, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2005 Well, I got the GRUB bootloader working the way I wanted it. I followed your instructions and used the easyuprmi to install all that stuff, went back to MCC and set everything up and it works like a charm. You guys are awesome. I can't thank you enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jboy Posted September 1, 2005 Report Share Posted September 1, 2005 Good job, FoulPlay! And please stick around and participate further. You may find that this is a great spot to enrich your knowledge and enjoyment of linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoulPlay Posted September 1, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2005 Good job, FoulPlay! And please stick around and participate further. You may find that this is a great spot to enrich your knowledge and enjoyment of linux. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Heh, trust me. I'm not going anywhere. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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