MS Win dual boot HD install without lilo

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: MS Win dual boot HD install without lilo
started by: gjhicks

Posted by gjhicks on April 29 2004,06:37

1) Assumes that the default boot is into MS Windows 98SE, also assumes that you have a copy of the DOS linux booting utility 'loadlin'. The utiilty can be got from: < http://elserv.ffm.fgan.de/~lermen/ >

2) Make a 'ext2' partition, say 400mb. I used Partition Magic

3) Boot from the DSL CD

4) Run 'dsl-hdinstall' and install to the newly created partition, in my case /dev/hda5, I reckon the enhanced install is the go

5) Mount the MS Windows root (or C:\) partition, usually 'mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1'

6) Copy '/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.22-xfs' to '/mnt/hda1/'

7) Reboot

8) Press 'F8' during the MS Windows boot, to get the MS Windows boot menu. Use 'Shift-F5' to get a plain vanilla command prompt

9) Make a directory to hold the DSL boot files and batch file, say 'c:\dsl-boot'

10) Move 'vmlinuz-2.2.22-xfs' (which will appear in the directory listing as 'vmlinu~1.22-') from C:\ root to the 'c:\dsl-boot\' directory

11) Change to the 'c:\dsl-boot\' directory and make a batch file as follows:

@echo off
loadlin vmlinu~1.22- root=/dev/hda5 ro

12) Change back to the C:\ root directory and edit/make the 'config.sys' file as follows:

[menu]
menuitem=win98se, Boot to Windows 98SE
menuitem=dsl, Boot to Damn Small Linux
menucolor=15,1
menudefault=win98se, 10

[dsl]

[win98se]
FILES=40

13) Then edit/make the 'autoexec.bat' file as follows:

@ECHO OFF
goto %config%

:win98se
rem
rem enter here any commands already in the autoexec.bat (probably just the sound card settings)
goto end

:dsl
cls
cd c:\dsl-boot
dsl-boot
goto end

:end

14) When you next re-boot, you will be presented with a menu. In the case above it will automatically boot into MS Windows after 10 seconds. Typing '2' will boot DSL. If you want it to automatically boot into DSL, just change the 'menudefault' line.

I reckon that the above procedure is better than the 'lilo' approach, specially if you use MS Windows more than DSL.
Bye,

Geoff.

Posted by gjhicks on April 30 2005,16:07

Hi there,

As I am now using a Win XP laptop but still looking at linux, I have adapted the above procedure to boot from a USB stick. I am booting DSL, Feather and Knoppix via this method.

Make the USB stick bootable. Many ways to do this but I have had good success (with 3 different USB sticks) using the HP utility found < here >

To get this work, you will need a set of MSDOS system and utility files. Either get them from a MSDOS boot floppy or you can download W95 system files from < here. >

Using the HP utility is pretty straightfoward, once bootable, copy loadlin.exe and the required linux "vmlinuz" files to the root directory and set up the config.sys and autoexec.bat as shown above.

Of course, your PC must allow booting from the USB stick!

The "vmlinuz" file for the current HD installed DSL can be found in the /root/ folder and is called "linux24"

Good luck!

Geoff.