My Dual Boot Situation


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I'm a complete newb to linux. I tried dual booting (with one HD) before and totally messed things up. So i want a few things cleared up before i start again this time.

I have 2 HDs now. My primary (20gb) contains winxp and my secondary (80gb) is where i want to install linux to this time. I'm assuming this is possible!

I heard it was possible to add linux to the boot.ini? i think i'd like that...

if i messup boot.ini how would i fix it?

should i use partician magic and boot magic?

or something else...

Any help is appreciated. Just tell me whats the easiest, not necessarily the best. (i know you linux guys, you like things complicated)

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If your second hard drive is to be dedicated to Linux, then you are already almost there!

No need to format or fdisk the new drive. Just pick the distro of your choice, and install it.

Your first drive (the Windows one) is hda.

Your second drive for Linux is hdb.

When the distro asks about installing to which drive, just make sure it is pointing to hdb. It will ask for confirmation (most popular distros do).

When it comes time for a boot loader. Pick GRUB (or LILO is ok), and have it put it into the MBR of your master drive.

GRUB (and LILO) are both multi-OS booters that will allow you to pick what OS to boot into.

Microsoft's "boot.ini" can only control booting into Microsoft OSes (surprised? I didn't think so). So, you will not be able to use that. Linux will not modify any of your Windows data.

If you ever want to remove Linux, and put the MBR back to the way it was (Windows Only), then you execute the command "fdisk /mbr" to have Microsoft re-write the boot record to only allow Windows to run.

Best of Luck, and ENJOY! :)

Mark

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I have 2 HDs now. My primary (20gb) contains winxp and my secondary (80gb) is where i want to install linux to this time.

Here is how I dual boot.

I shutdown.

I remove the power cable from my Windows HD and insert into my Linux HD.

I reboot.

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Microsoft's "boot.ini" can only control booting into Microsoft OSes (surprised? I didn't think so). So, you will not be able to use that.

Actually you can stick with using boot.ini if you really want to, but its a lot more complicated than using grub or lilo, because you have to first install linux with no bootloader, then use a boot floppy or liveCD to make an image of the first 512k of your linux boot partition, then save that as a file on your windows partition, then set up boot.ini to point to that as an option... basically, boot.ini is a pretty poor choice if you want to use it to boot linux as well as windows.

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Actually you can stick with using boot.ini if you really want to, but its a lot more complicated than using grub or lilo, because you have to first install linux with no bootloader, then use a boot floppy or liveCD to make an image of the first 512k of your linux boot partition, then save that as a file on your windows partition, then set up boot.ini to point to that as an option... basically, boot.ini is a pretty poor choice if you want to use it to boot linux as well as windows.

Ewww! That does sound rather ugly.

Thanks for the information, though! Perhaps I will meet someone who insists on doing it this way, and I will be able to say it can be done! (even though I will probably forget how to do it by then :pinch: )

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Here is how I dual boot.

I shutdown.

I remove the power cable from my Windows HD and insert into my Linux HD.

I reboot.

You should think about getting a mobile rack man, it would be alot easier then what your doing

Shutdown,

Unlock the rack and pull out the shelf with the windows drive

Slid in the nix rack

Lock

Boot

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You should think about getting a mobile rack man, it would be alot easier then what your doing

Shutdown,

Unlock the rack and pull out the shelf with the windows drive

Slid in the nix rack

Lock

Boot

I have no case.

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If your second hard drive is to be dedicated to Linux, then you are already almost there!

No need to format or fdisk the new drive. Just pick the distro of your choice, and install it.

Your first drive (the Windows one) is hda.

Your second drive for Linux is hdb.

When the distro asks about installing to which drive, just make sure it is pointing to hdb. It will ask for confirmation (most popular distros do).

When it comes time for a boot loader. Pick GRUB (or LILO is ok), and have it put it into the MBR of your master drive.

GRUB (and LILO) are both multi-OS booters that will allow you to pick what OS to boot into.

Microsoft's "boot.ini" can only control booting into Microsoft OSes (surprised? I didn't think so). So, you will not be able to use that. Linux will not modify any of your Windows data.

If you ever want to remove Linux, and put the MBR back to the way it was (Windows Only), then you execute the command "fdisk /mbr" to have Microsoft re-write the boot record to only allow Windows to run.

Best of Luck, and ENJOY!

Mark

hey thanks. i came across lilo the first time i tried installing linux.. it scared me. but after reading what i have to do to get linux in the boot.ini, lilo ain't so scary.

i'm downloading redhat right now. i'll try installing it tonight :)

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i'm downloading redhat right now. i'll try installing it tonight :)

If you are going to go the RedHat way, let me suggest Fedora Core, instead. Find it at http://Fedora.RedHat.com or browse over to your friendly neighborhood linuxiso.org ;)

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hrm, well thanks for the suggestion but i won't be able to find much of a difference for either. i just want to fool around with linux and learn it (and so i can do homework at home - i have a linux course at school)

no doubt i will sometime mess it up and have to a reinstall. as i learn i'll probably try a few different versions.

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