installed kanotix to hdb, lost boot option to boot knoppix

**helios17** · 11-26-2004, 05:05 AM

I have spent an hour searching the forum for the easiest way to do this and am not having much luck. Here is my situation. I was dual booting knoppix and xandros. knoppix was on hda1 and xandros was on hdb with a swap partition. I decided to give kanotix a run and when I installed it on hdb, I elected to install the grub boot loader to hda, thinking it would pick up kanotix on hdb. With Xandros, lilo was supplying my bootloader and was doing the job, but once I switched to kanotix, now only kanotix shows on boot. I have found several methods of fixing a dual boot with xp or win2k, but the linux dual boot instructions do not seem to apply to my situation. I am looking for the easiest way to get this done because I am going to write zeros to these drives soon anyway and dual boot kanotix/knoppix on seperate hd's. I need to get my mail off of knoppix mozilla mail and then I am good. Is there a way to make a boot floppy to get into hda/knoppix. I am leaving this to the pros because the last time I tried to "fix" lilo.conf or grub.conf/menu.lst I screwed it up royally.

any help would be appreciated

thanx

helios

**KanotixUser** · 11-26-2004, 06:15 AM

I believe you can use the Kanotix CD to boot the other distro.

**helios17** · 11-26-2004, 02:53 PM

I thought I could do that but the problem is that I do not know how. is it a command at the prompt? if so, what is the command. sorry for showing my ignorance here but the fact is I just don't know how. Its probably something really simple...kinda like me

thanks again

helios

**mzilikazi** · 11-26-2004, 03:11 PM

Boot Kanotix and edit /boot/grub/menu.lst. I have no idea what kernel you use.......

Code:

title           Knoppix 
root            (hd1,0)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb1 ro 
savedefault
boot

You can add whatever boot optiopns you normally need in lilo to the end of your kernel line. As I said i have no idea what kernel you're using so substitute your kernel for vmlinuz. BTW, did you ask this question in the Kanotix forum or on irc in #kanotix? You could get fixed in no time that way.

**helios17** · 11-26-2004, 03:27 PM

yes, I went to the english part of the kanotix forums and was invited to irc by kano, but when I entered and posed my question, I got a flood of RTFM's. I dont need that...if I could have found the precise answer in the man pages, I would not have posted...

anyway, thank you for your help. I have had little luck altering config files in the past. I will give it a try and see what happens.

thanx

helios

**mzilikazi** · 11-26-2004, 07:05 PM

Originally Posted by helios17

question, I got a flood of RTFM's. I dont need that...

No you don't need that. Strange, I hardly ever see anyone say RTFM without at least providing a link to the specific FM! Well here's a link.

If you can't get it to work just post your lilo.conf knoppix section and we'll figure it out. Keep in mind that GRUB is a bit different than lilo and it certainly sees your drives diferently.

**helios17** · 11-27-2004, 04:59 AM

took me long enough, but the link you gave me to fix my grub got me back on track...screwed it up a few times but I always do when I mess with config files. thank you for your patience

helios

**mzilikazi** · 11-27-2004, 06:27 AM

One of the best things about GRUB is the fact that you do not need to reinstall it everytime you change its config file. Also notice that automatically a backup (file~) is made of any files you edit. From now on always install any new boot loaders to the partition instead of MBR and simply add your new install to your existing menu.lst. Of course there is always update-grub Glad you got it working.