LILO, SATA HDD, IDE HDD, Mandriva, and XPee

[Slagathor]

Ok, here goes, I hope this is in the right spot..........

 

 

 

Ok, I have a 200gig SATA HDD, and a 20gig IDE HDD. When I installed Mandriva, I accidently put LILO on the 20gig IDE HDD.

Now, I want to reinstall XPee or 2k on the little partition I had for XPee, on the SATA HDD.

Now, the SATA doen not have a MBR, when I set bios to boot from SATA, nada, just some text ont he screen with no ryme or reason.... heh

But anywase, to my question, Can I unplug my IDE drive with LILO on, install XPee or 2k on the usual partition, when I need to go to XPee or 2k set the SATA to boot first, then when I need to go back to Linux, set to boot off the IDE.

 

I need a fresh install of XPee or 2K, for benching.......

 

[moved from Software by spinynorman]

[jboy]

If I understand this right, you currently boot Linux on the 20gb IDE, but want to install XP on the 200gb SATA, and then select which drive to boot from in the BIOS when you want to change from one boot drive to the other.

 

OK, if that's right, I believe your scheme will work as you described.

 

But first, I doubt that you need to disconnect the 20 gb drive to install XP. Just select the SATA as the boot drive in the BIOS, then boot from the XP Install CD (e.g., I can press F11 with my BIOS to tell it to boot from alternate device, such as CD) and then tell XP which partition you want to install it on. So now SATA is your boot drive and you're set to boot into XP.

 

Then, as I understand it, you intend to change boot drives in the BIOS when you want to boot Linux on the 20gb IDE.

 

After you get this set up, you will have other options if you get tired of changing the boot drive in the BIOS all the time. You could choose either drive to be the boot drive and set up lilo or grub on that drive to boot into XP or Linux (even multiple Linux installs) from the lilo or grub boot menu. If you want to go into that procedure after you get set up according to your plan, post a message at that time.

Edited September 7, 2005 by jboy

[Slagathor]

Well, XPee and Mandrake are on the 200gig SATA drive.

 

I have a crusty old install of XPee on a 10gig partition on the SATA drive.

I wanted to reinstall XPee or 2K so to have a fresh install so I can run benchies.

 

ANywase, ya, LILO is on the 20gig HDD, thats just used for storage.

Right now bios is set to boot of the 20gig (IDE 1).

If I set it to boot from SATA I get a bunch of numbers and crap start to scroll.....heh

 

 

So, I will give it a try, it's not like I will loose anything, just reinstall some apps if I do manage to fubar it. Just got to remember, dont format my /home partition.......

[Ixthusdan]

Anytime you install a windows system, remove lilo or any other bootloader. It's better for windows. If lilo or grub is present, windows is trained to "repair" the boot loader and possibly the partition. That means it will try to wipe other file systems. Don't give it the chance.

 

Myself, I would simply relocate lilo/grub to the sata drive.

[Slagathor]

Anytime you install a windows system, remove lilo or any other bootloader. It's better for windows. If lilo or grub is present, windows is trained to "repair" the boot loader and possibly the partition. That means it will try to wipe other file systems. Don't give it the chance.

 

Myself, I would simply relocate lilo/grub to the sata drive.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I can do this in MCC correct??????

 

Under BOOT, then leave BOOT LOADE TO USE alone, and change boot device from /dev/hda to /dev/sda correct???? IF I do this AFTER I reinstall XPee or 2k, will it still load it up?????

 

 

Then I can unplug the SATA drive, and put XPee or 2k on the IDE drive. and save all 200 wonderful gigs for Linux......

[Slagathor]

Ok, moved it fine, but uh, when I select XPee, I get a flashing dash and thats it.

 

ANy ideas.....

 

 

( I need to get back to it at least one more time)

Edited September 10, 2005 by Slagathor

[jboy]

Assumptions:

 

1. The lilo bootloader is now written to the SATA drive and it's the boot drive

2. XP is installed on the IDE drive and still has the XP bootloader installed on it

3. You want XP to show as a boot menu option on the SATA lilo menu

4. You have NO windows partitions on the SATA drive - dos, fat32(vfat), ntfs, etc (because your WinXP on the IDE HD needs to be the C: drive for this to work).

5. Your IDE HD is assumed to be /dev/hda

 

I think the following will work (but no guarantees as I can't test it on my setup). Boot into linux. You will need to edit /etc/lilo.conf. As the root user, edit /etc/lilo.conf to include the following section:

 

other=/dev/hda1
    label="WinXP_IDE"
    table=/dev/hda
    boot-as=0x80    

 

If the IDE HD is not /dev/hda, then adjust the above accordingly.

 

Save /etc/lilo.conf, then execute the following command as the root user in a terminal:

 

lilo -v

 

This will write the updated lilo bootloader to the MBR on the SATA drive. Then when you reboot, you will have a menu option that says: WinXP_IDE

Edited September 10, 2005 by jboy

[Slagathor]

I have Xpee on a small partition on the SATA drive.

I also have 2k on the IDE drive.

 

Here my entire lilo.conf

When I installed Mandriva, I had the IDE HDD just there for storage, I had XPee on the SATA, then installed Linux on the SATA. It listed the IDE as Windows, even though there was no install on it.

Xpee was listed as Windows 1, so I would select that and get to XPee.

 

Now, when I want to get to 2k, which is on the IDE HDD I just select it to boot off that HDD in the BIOS.

 

Perhaps we can work out what the problem is.......

 

# File generated by DrakX/drakboot
# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file

default="linux"
boot=/dev/sda
map=/boot/map
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
disk=/dev/sda bios=0x80
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/sda6
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht resume=/dev/sda7 splash=silent"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/sda6
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht resume=/dev/sda7"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/sda6
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe acpi=ht resume=/dev/sda7 devfs=nomount"
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda
map-drive=0x80
   to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
   to=0x80
other=/dev/sda1
label="windows1"
table=/dev/sda
map-drive=0x80
   to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
   to=0x80

[jboy]

OK, I think I see the problem. IF the SATA drive is now the boot drive, and IF WinXP is installed on the /dev/sda1 partition on this drive, then the "windows1" section (WinXP) of /etc/lilo.conf need to change as follows:

 

Change this section in your /etc/lilo.conf from:

 

other=/dev/sda1
label="windows1"
table=/dev/sda
map-drive=0x80
   to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
   to=0x80

 

to this instead:

other=/dev/sda1
label="windows1"
table=/dev/sda

Now XP should boot ok. Those two map-drive statements need to be deleted and that should do the trick.

 

Then, as the root user, execute the following command in a terminal:

 

lilo -v

 

That will write the updated lilo.conf info the the MBR on the SATA drive.

 

Also note that instead of:

 

label="windows1"

 

you can use: label="XP" or label="WinXP"

 

so that it's clear on the boot menu what that menu selecton really is. Just don't put any embedded spaces in the label.

[Slagathor]

ok, made the changes.

Will try it when I get home from work....... :D :D

[Slagathor]

Thank you sir, works a champ.......

[jboy]

Great! Glad to hear that your boot menu is now all set up the way you want it.