[lug] Using Loopback for /boot?

[stimits at comcast.net]

Hi,

I have an older machine with hardware issues on SATA ports which means the two disks I have now are the only disks I can attach. I'm interested in installing a newer version of fedora 19 (it has an existing fedora 16 install) to a spare 300 GB partition. The trick is that I have only one /boot, and I do not want to harm the older install until I'm sure everything is up and running on the newer install. The /boot/grub2/ is what worries me.

Current layout is no lvm used (just ordinary partitions). Drives: first SATA drive contains windows 7 and linux swap (sda), while the second hard drive contains fedora 16 and /boot (sdb). Second drive also contains the spare 300 GB partition (sdb), currently formatted ext4. My desire is to install fedora 19 to the spare sdb, share the /boot and swap, and either edit the existing grub boot from old fedora 16, or replace it with the new fedora 19 grub boot, with windows 7 and all linux installs remaining bootable with no down time. FYI, without everything remaining on the existing drive, I cannot add a new drive without replacing the motherboard.

I suspect I can simply install fedora 19 and tell it to not format /boot, then tell it to install on MBR of sda, or possibly even tell it to not even install boot to MBR, but instead edit the grub boot menu. Kernels themselves would not be overwritten due to version naming, but I still worry about grub issues. Can anyone give me advice on how dangerous this scheme is to damaging any of the existing operating systems? Or insights on using a single /boot for two fedora installs? I'm trying to avoid putting /boot on the same partition as / for the new install, but perhaps this would be the only way.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lug.boulder.co.us/pipermail/lug/attachments/20131023/f4eb7791/attachment.html>