RadioEar Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 I just want to add the advantage for having Windows on one drive and Linux on the other is; if Windows blows the drive, for some unknown reason, then you don't lose Linux on that same drive. Also, on a partitioned drive, Windows doesn't even know the Linux partition exists. So I think a two drive dual boot would be ideal. I have been dual booting with Linux (lilo) with no problems with a partitioned drive as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkFoss Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 (edited) I did the exact same thing as Pepse for about the first year that I was trying different Linux distros. I had 2 drives installed already 1 for XP and 1 for data storage. I did not want to keep overwiriting the mbr/ bootloader every time I switched distros. It was only when I settled on Mandriva that I reconfigured my comp and started dual-booting. One of the things I love is how easy Mandriva makes setting up a dual boot.. well as long as the other os is not another Linux.. they still have not fixed that bug. You don't even have to use the rescue mode to re-configure grub. You can pop in the disk and choose upgrade rather than install. It brings you rather quickly to the post-install where you can then go ahead and re-configure grub. It will have extra entries that you want to clean up later using the MCC though...Not sure if this would work for lilo.. I avoid it like the plague... Edited February 25, 2007 by DarkFoss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 Actually, for linux, it is best to learn your favorite boot loader and manually add your entries. I have several linux distros on my drive (see my sig) and I use lilo with Mandriva as the primary. When I add a distro, I let it install its bootloader (or not if there is a choice) and then reinstall the Mandriva loader or make my edits. I have also learned to use Mandriva to make any partitions ahead of time so that I do not run into problems. Ulteo, for example, wipes my installation. (It is a bug and an alpha!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepse Posted February 26, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 26, 2007 So, as I seem to understand this all I gotta do is take my XP hard drive and set the jumper for "slave", hook it up, then put my Mandriva 2006 DVD in and change the bootloader through GRUB? It sounds too easy. Serious. When I get to the Post Install area I should be able to understand what it is telling me as to changing the Bootloader so that it sees the XP hard drive and that after all is said and done I can reboot the computer and I will be given a choice as to what HDD to boot? And another thing right now my Bootloader would be whatever the default is when installing Mandriva. And of course I don't need GAG47 or System Commander? To some of you I might seem kinda dense but I write my stuff so that the replies "hopefully" are easy for me to understand. I might repeat myself in a different way but I try to write it so the replies are easy to understand. Later. Pepse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted February 26, 2007 Report Share Posted February 26, 2007 You shouldn't need the Mandriva DVD, because there is a boot sector on the disk you have it on. In the Mandriva Control Centre there is an option to configure the boot-loader and add Windows. Just slave the Windows drive and then configure the boot-loader to list it. It really is that simple. If anything goes wrong it can only be because the boot-loader has not been configured properly, which is unlikely if you're using the Mandriva wizard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted February 26, 2007 Report Share Posted February 26, 2007 I did not want to keep overwiriting the mbr/ bootloader every time I switched distros. It was only when I settled on Mandriva that I reconfigured my comp and started dual-booting. One of the things I love is how easy Mandriva makes setting up a dual boot.. well as long as the other os is not another Linux.. they still have not fixed that bug. There's ways around this. For example, bootloaders can be installed to the start of a partition. When I install a secondary distro, I install it's bootloader on to the start of it's partition. Then in my host/primary distro, I add the secondary distro to the main bootloader. In mandriva this would be as simple as going to the bootloader config menu, and adding another entry. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepse Posted March 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2007 Okay, just for practice I took an old hard drive and put Mandriva '06 on it and then I had an old hard drive with win98 and hooked them up with Linux as primary and win98 as slave, then booted the system and went to MCC and then to Boot and then "how system boots" then set GRUB with graphical menu as the bootloader to use. Then shut down and started the system. Well, there is no reference to windows, and there is nothing anywhere to say that the windows hard drive is there, except that BIOS does know that there are 2 hard drives. What did I miss?? Pepse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted March 2, 2007 Report Share Posted March 2, 2007 mandriva doesnt "automagically detect" any changes to your hdd's, that's mostly impractical. it only automatically adds windows to the bootloader, if the windows drive is already present at the mandriva install time. this is the preferred method. just leave them connected and stop this disconnecting stuff. if you connect it after installing mandriva, you need to go into MCC and add windows yourself in the bootloader tool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepse Posted March 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2007 :D Okay, I finally figured it out. I slaved the win98 hard drive and then did the Mandriva update so that Mandriva would see that I had the win98 hard drive in there. Okay then I booted to the win98 hardrive (thru GRUB) and it took about 20 minutes for it to finally load. I figure that because windows was put as a secondary drive it had to recalibrate itself. NOW, the big question is.... am I going to be able to do the same with the Windows XP hard drive slaved to a Linux hard drive. Is XP going to have a bigger hassle than win98 of accepting the slave role? Later. Pepse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted March 5, 2007 Report Share Posted March 5, 2007 :D Okay, I finally figured it out. I slaved the win98 hard drive and then did the Mandriva update so that Mandriva would see that I had the win98 hard drive in there. Okay then I booted to the win98 hardrive (thru GRUB) and it took about 20 minutes for it to finally load. I figure that because windows was put as a secondary drive it had to recalibrate itself. NOW, the big question is.... am I going to be able to do the same with the Windows XP hard drive slaved to a Linux hard drive. Is XP going to have a bigger hassle than win98 of accepting the slave role? Later. Pepse. There shouldn't be any problem. Just swap the drives around and XP should be good to go. All the boot loader does is point the system to a partition where Windows is installed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepse Posted March 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2007 OK, I am happy with the help from everybody. The situation is SOLVED. How do I put that in the header. Stay tuned for a similar topic so read it and don't be confused with this one. Pepse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted March 6, 2007 Report Share Posted March 6, 2007 At the bottom of your first post (the one that started the thread) there is a button the reads "Edit" - click this, and choose "Full Edit" from the drop down. From here you should be able to edit the title. (yes, I could do it for you, but I figure, teach a man to fish...and all that jazz.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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