Indepth dual boot, 2hd's, windows(1) knoppix(2) help

Ok after spending numerous hours online staring at forums of how to do grub and lilo for dual boot i'm still at a loss for what needs to be done. The setup that i currently have is Windows hd #1, and knoppix hd #2. All of the directions of commands was confusing... they made it seem that i have to edit linux first then windows.... and windows just says to edit the boot.ini ....
1. I just want a detailed account of how to setup a dual boot with xp on primary disk, and linux of slave disk.

i'm not using one hd so i'm confused on what to do seeing as 90% of tutorials deal with one hd.

if any information is needed about my system i'm open for aim discussion and what not. i'm online 24/7.

Also if this infact can be done with my setup i'll dedicate a part of the site for a windows tutorial for this setup so that more people can leave windows behind and use the "goodness" :)

PLEASE PLEASE HELP.

Hello there,

I have it set up like that and it works fine, I made a partition on my slave drive called it linux formatted it in ext3 (hdb5), now to install knoppix as a hd installation simply put knoppix in your cdrom drive let it boot up, then once in knoppix open up a console type su to become root and then use this command knoppix-installer

You will get a window with some options, first configure your install,
In my case I used hdb5 as my partition to install knoppix, I used the multi user setup, it will ask you to put in a user name and password for your user and root,
be sure to have lilo being installed on the mbr, all the questions are pretty straight forward so you should not have any problems installing, next start installation...

Once it is done installing simply reboot and you will see the lilo boot loader, it will show linux first following with the option to choose which hd to boot windows from, most likely hda1, at least for me ;)

This method works for me and should work for you, it is really easy, goodluck! oh and let me know if everything worked out :)

weedje

i have windows as my primary hd and linux as slave ... why would lilo boot up instead of windows asking between xp and knoppix.? i have the slave(knop) set as cable select for jumpers so that it should be recognized second. but if what your saying is that linux must be the primary drive for this boot loader to work then i'll have to change my hd's around ....? is that correct?

also i was told that grub was better because you don't have to do some extra config stuff if you recompile the kernal ...... lilo or grub ?

You don't need to switch your harddrives around, you don't have to edit boot.ini...
In fact, you don't have to edit anything, just install knoppix on the second drive and just be sure that you install lilo onto the mbr when the installation configuration asks for it, you can either pick a partition or mbr, pick mbr... once installed, reboot and you will see...

weedje

I believe that i've done that ... when knoppix boots it gives me a selection of three types of linux, though i've only installed one.
linux
kernal 2.?.?
kernal 2.6.?

it looks on the lines of that .... and is a colored red white and black screen.

if that infact is lilo running ... how do i get windows to show on the boot screen so that i can switch back and forth with ease ....?

heh like i stated earlier i'm new to linux somewhat and i need details for this indepth .... any help that is given i will post a detailed tutorial on my site with pictures so that windows users experienceing the same thing won't have to bug you nice people! ....

"if that in fact is lilo running ... how do i get windows to show on the boot screen so that i can switch back and forth with ease ....?"

You haven't done something foolish like switching the hard drives in your BIOS, have you?

On installing Knoppix to the second hard drive, when the first is your Windows boot drive, it should have installed lilo to the MBR of that first drive and added Windows to the boot menu.

If the drive you installed Knoppix on was your first drive when it was installed, then it might not have properly recognized Windows on the second one--and Windows wouldn't much like booting that way, anyway. Windows 9x wants to be on the first drive, and the NT-based ones don't like to be moved around after the fact. (Linux doesn't really either, but you can often edit /etc/fstab to make it happy.)

IF that is the case, try doing the Knoppix install with the drives reversed, exactly like they are when you run Windows. (Or try it unless your Windows is NT. It will be hard to restore things with NT if the Linux install goes wrong, but any other version of Windows has tools to restore its own MBR.)

Anyway, the Knoppix installer (and most other Linux installers, as well) should have picked up your install of Windows, unless you did something weird like that or accidentally overwrote your copy of Windows.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mkyb14

I believe that i've done that ... when knoppix boots it gives me a selection of three types of linux, though i've only installed one.
linux
kernal 2.?.?
kernal 2.6.?

it looks on the lines of that .... and is a colored red white and black screen.

if that infact is lilo running ... how do i get windows to show on the boot screen so that i can switch back and forth with ease ....?

heh like i stated earlier i'm new to linux somewhat and i need details for this indepth .... any help that is given i will post a detailed tutorial on my site with pictures so that windows users experienceing the same thing won't have to bug you nice people! ....

---

The 'linux' option is the same as 'linux 2.4.x', ie it boots linux using the 2.4 kernel. The linux 2.6.x' option boots linux using the 2.6 kernel.

Please post your lilo.conf file and the output of cfdisk:

Open a terminal, type 'su' to become root, then type 'cat /etc/lilo.conf' to read your lilo.conf.

Type 'cfdisk' to read the output of cfdisk.

You can copy/paste from the console to post the output.

the way that I installed was i unplugged ALL my hd's and just pluged in the 10gig that i installed knoppix on. then i connected my c:\ (windows) disk to see what would happen if both were plugged in ... windows as ide 1 and knoppix as ide 2 .... knoppix loaded and didn't give or show an option for windows ...... eh anyways here is the config from knoppix

# Kernel command line options that apply to all installed images go
# here. See: The 'boot-prompt-HOWO' and 'kernel-parameters.txt' in
# the Linux kernel 'Documentation' directory.
#
# append=""
# Boot up Linux by default.
#
default="Linux"

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="Linux"
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.27
label="Linux(2.4)-1"
initrd=/boot/initrd.img-2.4.27
append="ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet"
read-only

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.7
label="Linux(2.6)-2"
initrd=/boot/initrd.img-2.6.7
append="ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet"
read-only

# If you have another OS on this machine to boot, you can uncomment the
# following lines, changing the device name on the 'other' line to
# where your other OS' partition is.
#
# other=/dev/hda4
# label=HURD
# restricted
# alias=3


and typing 'cfdisk' just gave me a fatal error cannot be displayed ...

would it work if i connected the hd's the way that i wanted and then reinstalled knoppix to the 2nd drive.... would that mean that it would automatically configure it so that there would be a dual boot?

You need to add an entry for windows to lilo.conf similar to this:

Code:

---

# Boot Windows on hda1
other=/dev/hda1
 label="Windows"
 table=/dev/hda

---

Problem is, we don't know what device windows is on (in Linux terminology, whether hda or hdb). Since you say lilo boots with both hd's plugged in, I suspect Linux consider's this to be hda & Windows drive to be hdb but let's check:

in a console type: 'cat /etc/fstab'
You should get something like this:

Code:

---

root@1[knoppix]# cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: filesystem table.
#
# filesystem  mountpoint  type  options  dump  pass
/dev/hda5  /  ext3  defaults,errors=remount-ro  0  1

proc  /proc  proc  defaults  0  0
/dev/fd0  /floppy  vfat  defaults,user,noauto,showexec,umask=022  0  0
usbdevfs  /proc/bus/usb  usbdevfs  defaults  0  0
sysfs  /sys  sysfs  defaults  0  0
/dev/cdrom /cdrom  iso9660  defaults,ro,user,noexec,noauto  0  0
/dev/dvd /dvd  iso9660  defaults,ro,user,noexec,noauto  0  0
/dev/cdaudio /cdaudio  iso9660  defaults,ro,user,noexec,noauto  0  0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 vfat umask=022,users 0 0
/dev/hda7 /mnt/hda7 vfat umask=000,users 0 0

# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda6 none swap defaults 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda8 /mnt/hda8 ext3 noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda9 none swap defaults 0 0

---

Yours will be a bit different but there should be an entry:

Code:

---

/dev/hd??  /  ext3  defaults,errors=remount-ro  0  1

---

/dev/hd?? is where your Linux system is.

and there should be an entry:

Code:

---

/dev/hd?? /mnt/hd??  (vfat or ntfs).....

---

That is where windows is.

So now you have to add to /etc/lilo.conf:

Code:

---

other=/dev/hd??  (wherever windows is)
 label="Windows"
 table=/dev/h??

---

Then run lilo to implement the changes.

Both the edit and the lilo must be done as root (ie 'administrator level), so

open a console, type 'su'.
You are now root.
Now type 'kate /etc/lilo.conf''. Knoppix will protest a bit but should open the file. Make the edit then save the file.
Now open another console (so we don't lose the kate editor) and type su again to become root in this console.
Now type 'mount /dev/hd??' (wherever windows is)
then type 'lilo' to implement your changes.
You should now be able to boot windows from your lilo bootloader.
If you get an error, re-edit lilo.conf to fix it. (that is why we left kate open).

Incidentally, 'cfdisk' gave an error & did not run because you were not root.

ok after reading over your last msg i thought that it might be the jumpers that i got wrong on the slave drive ... so after going through maxtors lame website i got the settings right now...
BUT now it just loads windows automatically .... no hesitation by the system trying to recognized ide drives as it did before ..... there for i'm wondering now if i have to edit the damn windows MBR to let me choose the other drive ?

this is becomming way harder than i think that it should be. :(