please help

[crater]

hello again guys
well this time I'm having a prob. installed a dual hdd system.

I want to install win xp on my hdd 1 (master) and then install Linux(mandrake) on my hdd 2 (slave) and then use the bios to change back and forth the booted system.
The prob is that both OSs what to be installed on the master
and knowing that both XP & Mandrake have partioning tools I let them do the work. however when I Installed xp on the master drive, then switched to the slave via the bios, then installed Mandrake, when it came time to partion and format the drive it asked me to "erase entire drive(witch one ???) or custom partion"
so I choose custom, choose the hdb>deleted the existing fat partion>auto allocated>formated(witch it does automatic),then it went on installing without asking me witch hdd I wanted to install too, but I let it go and install anyway
Now I can't boot from the slave, get a error message "error loading operating system", but when I boot from the master Linux boots up asking me witch OS to boot "linux, linux failsafe, linux-nonfb, NT, floppy" when I choose NT "XP" boots up and when "linux" is chosen Mandrake starts.
All this tells me that at least part of if not all of the linux os is installed on the master. So in xp I looked at the control panel, and now Windows don't reconize the slave drive. (probally because it's formated to linux) I would guess. And vise-versa in Linux the Mount of the master is not reconized because of the format(NTFS).
Is what I call the "linux boot" just the boot loader that has been installed on the master and the rest of the linux OS really installed on the slave ???
some help would be greatly apperciated.

 

[lotusfang]

...use the bios to change back and forth...
Do you mean to hide the primary/secondary using the bios or change the boot sequence (only available in later bios) to boot from the disks alternately??? Both are painful processes. Instead, you can use a good boot manager.

...can't boot from the slave...
Isn't the MBR stored in the first sector of the first HDD. Hence, looks like lilo (or grub whichever is used as bootloader by Mandrake) may have automatically chosen this location and overwritten your XP boot manager. So your XP installation is safe, but the XP loader has been overwritten.

...Linux can't recognize NTFS...
I had a package which mounter NTFS drives read-only, but now you get packages which can mount it RW. However I do not know XP support for ext2fs (or ext3fs or whatever is currently in use - I should really brush up my Linux fundas ).

Is what I call the "linux boot" just the boot loader that has been installed on the master and the rest of the linux OS really installed on the slave ???
Appears to be so.

- LF

 

[zen]

Linux will normally put it's bootloader into the MBR,so you will get LILO or GRUB when you boot.
The easiest option for now is to undo what you have just done,which could be a problem as linux is now in your mbr.Unless you get a better suggestion,I would back up your critical stuff in XP (e-mail,programs etc) format the whole drive,reload windows then install Mandrake in Expert Mode,when you get to the bootloader option choose "floppy",insert floppy and the bootloader gets written to it .XP will now boot as your main o/s,to load Mandrake install the floppy before you boot.
Depending on the size of the drive you should leave about 3GB for linux when re-installing XP.
This is the set-up I currently use.

 

[crater]

boot-loader

ok thanks for the help

So for now it looks like just the boot loader (lilo) has been written to the master drive, now HOW DANGEROUS is it to leave it installed? or would it be recommended to remove it and boot Linux from a floppy?

As you can see I'm new to linux and don't want to do something in there that will screw up my XP install

@lotusfang: yea all I'm trying to do in the bios is toggel the boot seq. to boot desired OS.

 

[lotusfang]

Leaving lilo in the MBR shouldn't be a problem unless -

1. You decide to make changes to the Linux root (or /boot as the case may be) partition (an almost non-existant possibility) in which case, you may need to do some tweaking around.

2. You decide to remove the Linux installation in which case, lilo is rendered redundant.

3. you decide to make it a hobby of installing & uninstalling OSes in which case, a wiser option would be to clean up and start from scratch.

Since you don't want to break the existing XP setup, leaving lilo intact should be fine. As long as you are able to boot the OSes, it shouldn't be a problem (don't fix it if it ain't broken philosophy )

As zen suggested, backup all important data first if you are planning to tinkering around.

PS: Booting Linux from a floppy can be slightly slow.

- LF

 

[Johnny™]

what u should have done to make things a whole lot easier and less time consuming would have been to install system commander and use the add o/s tool in there... which btw can still be done....then u get a boot loader similar to lilo but with an easier interface...but using system commander to install o/s's ie easier and safer than trying the partitioning utils including within the o/s's

 

[rustymeadow]

... or...
Just make a bootable floppy for linux (done during setup) and erase lilo by booting your system with a startup disk and typing:
fdisk /mbr.
This will clear the mbr and you can boot into linux using the floppy anytime you want... all other times it will boot into the Windows installation.

 

[crater]

cool guys
Thanks for the help, Guess I'll just leave lilo on for now and see if it gives me any trouble.
If so I'll go back to the ol' format command and start from scratch