[lug] Dual boot from two hard drives, LILO

[Hugh Brown]

In the past, it has been my experience that windows on /dev/hda and
linux on /dev/hdb will not work with lilo.  We always had to use a boot
floppy.  Lilo wanted to have a /boot partition on /dev/hda.

I don't know what grub is capable of in that regard.  IIRC, grub claims
not to be stuck with the limitations that lilo has, whatever that means.

Hugh


On Fri, 2002-05-31 at 18:20, D. Stimits wrote:
> Glenn Murray wrote:
> > 
> > I gave that (boot=/dev/hda) a shot, but then the system wouldn't boot
> > any OS, but kept looping through the boot cycle; hitting TAB at the
> > LILO 2... (whatever) prompt did not display the choices.  I had to dd
> > the boot loader LILO had saved back to /dev/hda.
> 
> The idea here is that the MBR on /dev/hda points to the locations named,
> and if it fails to load, the named spot is neither a bootable system nor
> another loader. What it points to should be examined. But the dd backup
> is a very good thing to have :P
> 
> Is there a reason why you added this line? If not, try without it (you
> can just comment it out).
> 
> Also, try a case of replacing "lba32" with "linear". And remove the
> "compact" until you get it working, I find it has caused problems for me
> in the past.
> 
> Most likely change that would help I think is to add an explicit "root="
> line to the individual boot sections, name the PBR in those, and keep
> the MBR in the global area. E.G.:
> # lba32 # try commenting this out, using linear instead.
> linear
> boot=/dev/hda
> # root=/dev/hdb5 # comment out, use only for individual boot sections.
> # compact # comment out
> install=/boot/boot.b
> delay=90
> map=/boot/map
> vga=normal
> ################################################# Linux
> image=/vmlinuz
>         label=Linux
>         read-only
>         root=/dev/hdb5
>         alias=l
> 
> ################################################# Windoze
> other=/dev/hda1
>         label=Windows
>         root=/dev/hda1
>         alias=w
> #        table=/dev/hda # comment out till other parts work
> 
> > 
> > Odd, I thought that having Linux on a separate hard drive would make
> > things easier, not harder.  Does grub handle this sort of thing
> > better?
> 
> It makes other aspects easier, but there is a tradeoff. I have no idea
> how grub works with this situation.
> 
> D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com
> 
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Glenn Murray
> > http://www.mines.edu/~gmurray
> > 
> > On Thu, 30 May 2002, D. Stimits wrote:
> > 
> > > Someone already picked up on this, but here is some general info to
> > > expand on it. hdb5 is a partition boot record (PBR), not a master boot
> > > record (MBR). The MBR is always the initial loader, it can point
> > > directly at a bootable area, or it can point at another loader (the
> > > latter being chain loading). If you install to boot=/dev/hda, your
> > > current boot loader will be overwritten, so have a recovery disk ready
> > > for windows (or let it just repair the bootup in its repair mode I
> > > think...not sure how XP does that, 2K can repair boot only). Change the
> > > boot= line to point at /dev/hda (an MBR), rather than hda5 (a PBR), try
> > > again.
> > >
> > > D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com
> > >
> > > Glenn Murray wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Here's the lilo.conf I've been trying to use...
> > > >
> > > > lba32
> > > > boot=/dev/hdb5
> > > > root=/dev/hdb5
> > > > compact
> > > > install=/boot/boot.b
> > > > delay=90
> > > > map=/boot/map
> > > > vga=normal
> > > > ################################################# Linux
> > > > image=/vmlinuz
> > > >         label=Linux
> > > >         read-only
> > > >         alias=l
> > > >
> > > > ################################################# Windoze
> > > > other=/dev/hda1
> > > >         table=/dev/hda
> > > >         label=Windows
> > > >         alias=w
> > > >
> > > ...
> > > > > >
> > > > > > hda1       XP
> > > > > > hdb1       /home
> > > > > > hdb2       /swap
> > > > > > hdb5       /
> > > ...
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