dual-booting on second harddrive

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: dual-booting on second harddrive
started by: foamy3

Posted by foamy3 on Sep. 28 2006,03:39

First off, I'm very new to Linux. DSL is the only linux distro I've ever used.

I installed DSL without much trouble to my harddrive. It is a full debian-type install. I later added a second harddrive onto the computer. This drive has a windows 98 install on it. After mounting /mnt/hdb1, I can view all of the files from the drive without trouble. I can't seem to boot into windows, though. I'm using GRUB as my bootloader. There is only 1 partion on hdb, and the boot flag is set. These are some of the GRUB entries I've tried:

Code Sample

title Windows
root (hd1,0)
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot

title Windows2
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

I've also used the 'edit' command within grub to change the format a little. Nothing seems to work. With the first example I posted, "title Windows," when I boot, the screen says:

Quote

root (hd1,0)
Filesystem type is fat, partion type 0xb
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 28 2006,04:41

It looks alright up front.. but did you check < http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Installing_Grub > anyways?

Posted by foamy3 on Sep. 28 2006,04:52

That's where I got most of how I set up the windows part in menu.lst. DSL installed grub for me on installation. It boots DSL fine.

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 28 2006,15:13

Looking closer at your first post... I see you are using win98 - so I am going to fire some questions in regard to that.

1. did you add another hard drive for DSL?
2. if not, what did you have previously on the disk that DSL now occupies - what was the partition table like?

My reason for asking these is that win98 uses ms-dos which will assign the drive letters automatically (i.e. c:\ to the first fat partition it finds).

If 1 or 2 applies to you, you might have to hide a partition during boot, or rearrange the drives.

Did you also try changing the arrangement/boot sequence of the hard drives in your bios?

Of course, all of this might not apply at all :P

Posted by foamy3 on Sep. 28 2006,15:31

The computer originally had windows 95 on it. I used cfdisk from the DSL liveCD to delete everything on the partion table (I think there was just one partion on it). I then made a bootable linux partion and installed DSL to that. I had another computer with windows98 on it. I took the harddrive out of the win98 comp, and installed it as a slave onto the DSL comp.

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 28 2006,17:37

Bootable linux partition - I guess ext2(/3)? Any fat partitions on the 1st disk?

Assuming your win98 partition was c: under the other computer...
- you could either try hiding/removing/rearranging, by bios/boot/grub/physically exchanging the cable positions.
(as was somewhat suggested in my previous post)

Posted by foamy3 on Sep. 29 2006,01:04

Name=hda1
Flags=Boot
Part Type=Primary
FS Type=Linux ext2
Label= <--Blank
Size (MB)= 4017.81 :laugh:

no free space

~~~Windows Drive~~~
Name=hdb1
Flags=Boot
Part Type=Primary
FS Type=Win95 FAT32
Label= <--blank
Size (MB)=6489.75

8.23mb free space
Part Type=Pri/Log

Will switching the drives mess up my DSL install?

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 29 2006,02:17

Well you'd have to edit grub again, and point your backup/restore/etc scripts to the new location.