hd install went fine. now how do i boot it?
Forum: HD Install
Topic: hd install went fine. now how do i boot it?
started by: Jehar
Posted by Jehar on Jan. 19 2004,07:15
Hellomy hd install went just fine. used the scripts and all. bery smooth and easy (except for the fact that a fdisked away one of my drives
) other than that it was fine.now what?
how would i boot from my hd for DSL now?
would i have to make a boot floppy?
or is there some way to do it automatically (and maybe boot window$ from a floppy?)
any help here would be much appreciated.
thx
Posted by davmac on Jan. 19 2004,11:09
Jehar,I've just gone through this and yesterday got my main machine successfully booting Windows 2000 and DSL. Can you describe your problem in a bit more detail? How have you organised the installation of the multiple OSs? Are you using lilo as the boot loader?
For the record I've got win2k on my first disk (hda) and DSL on the second (hdb). I ran mkliloboot and then changed my bios settings so that my machine tries to boot from the second hard disk. So no need for floppies. I start up the machine, lilo kicks in and I get 10 secs to choose whether I want DSL or win2k before it boots the default.
Its far from working as I want it but I'm getting there (next jobs are to get the swap space working and figure out how to mount hda and access all my mp3s there)
I can't guarantee to be able to help - I'm an almost complete linux novice - but it sounds like I'm going through some of the same problems a couple of days ahead of you!
Dave Mac
Posted by libretto on Jan. 20 2004,00:00
After running the hdinstall script, you shoudl have run the lilo config script.This sets up the LILO bootloader, and once that is working then you can select your OS on bootup.
I'm a bit of a novices as well so i cant give any further help, aside from you looking ont he notes/faq section of the DSL website
Good luck:)
Posted by Jehar on Jan. 21 2004,02:00
k ill clairify a little more.i have win95 on hda1 and linux on hda7, a logical partition. the hd install went fine though.
lilo eh? what would i do exactly? not really interested in having a choice between the os's. using a floppy boot disk for win95 just in case would be fine. any help here would be great
Posted by Jehar on Jan. 21 2004,02:01
btw, when i try to access my linux partition from windows, it says it cant be accessed er somthin like that... does that mean that the hd install messed it up or the install just closed it only for linux use...?
Posted by CappyCaffeine on Jan. 21 2004,03:36
Windows cannot read the partition DSL is on because it is in a file system that Windows cannot read. Windows Me and below can only read Fat32 and Fat16 or plain old fat. Windows XP can read the FatXX and NTFS (or HPFS if you like OS/2) (NTFS stands for New Technology File System which debuted in Windows NT, HPFS is IBMs designation for High Performance File System-- which is th e same as NTFS.. I think IBM developed it first with OS/2, but I could be wrong..)Anyhoo, Linux can read a multitude of file systems. There is a windows program that can read your linux partition called explore2fs < Website >.
This is a read only program, you cannot write to your linux partition from windows. You can write to FAT32 and FAT16 from linux, and you can READ ONLY from NTFS/HPFS, but you cannot write without corrupting the file system (in my experience).
Anyways... in most Linux systems, there is a "mkbootfloppy" command to make a boot floppy in a linux system. I do not know if it native to DSL, but you may be able to install it via apt-get install mkbootfloppy.
anyone want to help me out on this one?
Cappy
Posted by Jehar on Jan. 22 2004,07:54
mkbootfloppy didnt work. oh well. found the lilo.conf file.
some tips on editing it?
Posted by Stu Pidasso on Jan. 22 2004,17:27
Jehar,I think I can help you with this one. First let me tell you that it isn't going to be possible to use a boot disk to boot Windows. However, we can getting you booting DSL without one either and the fact that you have Win95 will help. I will try to be as clear as I can, but I am going to assume you know something about Windows/DOS. We are going to use Loadlin to boot DSL from a DOS environment. A full Loadlin user guide can be found at < Loadlin User guide >
Ok here we go:
1) first you need to go to the following website < Loadlin download >
and download the file lodlin16.tgz do this while in win95
2) Now open up "My Computer" and select your C: drive. In the C: drive you want to make a folder called "loadlin"
3) Use your favorite zip utility (WinZap, UltimateZip etc) to unzip lodlin16.tgz into the new folder C:\loadlin if you've done this correctly the loadlin folder should have in it 7 files and 2 new folders.
4) Now reboot your win 95 machine into DOS mode. You can choose this from the "Shutdown" menu (if you were in Win95).
5) once you are in DOS change directories until you have just a C: prompt.
6) now move into the loadlin folder (directory) by typing cd loadlin. if everything is right so far, your prompt should look like c:\loadlin>
7) if you are ready to boot into DSL all you need to do is issue the following command:
LOADLIN zimage /dev/hdb1 ro vga=3
if the hard drive with DSL on it is not hdb then change this accordingly. this should start the DSL booting sequence.
- Now, if you don't want to remember that command, there is a small file included in the lodlin16 package which will do it for you. it is called linux.bat and at your C:\loadlin> prompt you would type "linux". be careful though. this file is set up for a person who has their linux system on hdb2 not hdb1 as you have. so you would need to edit this file (which is pretty easy to do). in windows 95, open up WordPad and choose File>Open then locate your loadlin folder on your C: drive. change the "File Type" box at the bottom to include all files. within the list of files, you should see linux.bat open it and you will see about four lines of text, one of which says:
c:\loadlin\loadlin c:\loadlin\zimage root=/dev/hdb2 ro vga=3
simply change the hdb2 to hdb1 and then from the file menu, choose "Save" close the file and you are all set (do not choose "Save As"...just use "Save"!!!) now from your
c:\loadlin> prompt type "linux" and the DSL boot sequence should start.
- Also, I am going to assume that currently, when you turn your PC on, it boots to Win95 and not DOS. which means with these instructions you have to boot Win95 before you can boot DSL...yeah that is kinda slow, but there is a way around that too. it is not too hard to make a Win95 machine boot to DOS all the time instead of Windows. again, in Win95, open WordPad and choose File>Open navigate to your C: directory and find a file called Msdos.sys (you will need to have it set to "Show Hidden Files). open Msdos.sys in WordPad and you will see about 30 lines of text (you may have to change the "File Type" box to all files again). included in this is a line which says :
BootGui=1
change the 1 to a 0 so it says
BootGui=0
be very careful not to change anything else or move anything around. save this change (File>Save do not use "save As") and close the file. Now when you boot the machine it should go to DOS instead on Win95. from here you simply change to your loadlin directory, type "linux" and DSL should begin to boot.
I know I've included a lot of info here and I hope I haven't insulted you by talking too simply or confused you by talking to hard, but this should work. If you have trouble post it here (be specific please) and I will do what I can to help you further. Just so you know, I am at work right now and won't be near the computer much this afternoon (I am on the east coast) so I may not get back to you until tonight or tomorrow.
Posted by scroob on Jan. 27 2004,08:32
That's a good tip about Loadlin, and I'm going to try it. Don't know if it will work in WinME, since real DOS is transparent in it, but I can always boot up with the DOS boot disk.The problem I had with LILO is that it found my other Windows partitions OK, but none of them will boot using it. The machine freezes. I was using a dual boot Windows setup using a nice freeware boot manager (sbminst.exe) but it can't see my Linux partition.
I have to keep using Windows until I learn/adapt Linux - I have hardware issues and will have to find and cobble the drivers together until I can get everything working.
Posted by scroob on Jan. 27 2004,08:47
If you can't get the above site to load (I couldn't) Loadlin is available in many places on the net, like here:< http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/boot/dualboot/ >