dual booting 1

[raven1]

I recently my supervisor helped me to install RH 8.0 as a second OS.I put it on a fat32 partition.Ok,so everything worked fine with the exception that it was naming win2k "dos" in the boot up options.TYo make a long story short I should have booted into win2k to see if it would work.So heres the deal...I choose win2k (dos) and it acts as if it booting up.Then I get a message saying "I:\ does not seem to be a windows disk or something rather.checking disk" then it starts to boot into windows except when all is said and done I have a windows screen with no desktop.So I did a fixboot and fixmbr hoping to get windows again.Only the same thing thing happen.So heres the wierd part.I sat staring at the windows screen wondering what to try next when here comes my desktop! so I'm gathering it was going to happen for me in the first place except it so friggen slow i didnt think it was working.I now there is something work with the boot up log but what? what do I have have to do so it works correctly? And why is win2k so slow now? I just want to be able to boot into OS.This is my second time trying to do this.Very frustrating!!Please help! Can anyone help me out.IS there something I need to do to the boot.ini?
Thank you

 

[fluid11]

The fact that its named "dos" doesn't mean anything as it just a label. You can change this label in your bootloaders (GRUB or LILO) config file (/etc/grub.conf or /etc/lilo.conf) to whatever you want. The boot.ini file is only used if your going to use Windows NTLDR to dual boot the OS's, rather than LILO or GRUB.

I'm not sure what is causing your problem, but here's how you do a dual Lin/Win boot.

1. fdisk your MBR. You can do this from an existing Linux installation or you can boot to a DOS disk with fdisk on it. Run 'fdisk /mbr' to erase anything in your MBR.
2. Install Windows. Make sure to leave free disk space for Linux.
3. Install Linux. During the Linux installation when it asks which bootloader you want, choose either GRUB or LILO (doesn't matter). Make sure to tell the bootloader to install into the MBR (this will overwrite Windows's NTLDR). Red Hat usually does a good job of finding existing OS's installed on your system and sets the dual boot up for you automatically.


Thats basically it. If Red Hat doesn't find your other OS, then you just have to add it to the config file of your bootloader. Post back if it doesn't find it.


One thing you can try is to follow step 1 and fdisk your MBR and then reinstall your bootloader. Its possibe that something in your MBR is causing your problems. Try this from Linux...

/sbin/fdisk /mbr
/sbin/grub-install (only if you run GRUB)
/sbin/lilo -v (only if you run LILO)


ChrisP

 

[raven1]

I have both win2k/linux installed already.To get to windows I just turn on the pc and wait for 5 mins.With RH I use the ERD I made while installing it.Do I need to do a reinstall or can I boot into RD and configure grub?

Thank you,your very helpfull

S.

 

[fluid11]

Boot into RH, fdisk the MBR and reinstall GRUB. Make sure to create a Linux bootdisk before you do this just in case you can't boot afterwards --> 'mkbootdisk'.


ChrisP

 

[raven1]

Ok I tried
sbin/fdisk /mbr
sbin/grub-install
But I get a "can't open mbr" error after the sbin/fdisk /mbr command.I also tried to reinstall grub but didnt work.Could it be that mbr is not located in sbin? I'm not sure what sbin is.Is that the same as root?
I reinstalled win2000 so it is not slow anymore so that is fixed.Would you suggest reinstalling rh 8.0 also?And if so, will it detect the previous RH OS still there and repair the mbr? As you could tell I'm new at Linux thank you

 

[fluid11]

You forgot the / before sbin. /sbin is a directory that holds utilities that only the superuser (root) can access.


ChrisP

 

[raven1]

Thank you chrisp. I can now boot to both os's.I reinstalled RH with defaults.Everything works fine except win2000 in slow at booting up again although not nearly as much as before.I have been reading up on linux and I'm beginning to wonder if linux is eating up my memory.Could that be why win2k is slow? I really can't see how unless linux runs somehow in the background .When I boot into linux it's fast! ;-)

On another note- RH does not pick up my modem.I hear I need a pci modem.Is this correct?

Thanks again
Sherri

 

[estesflyer]

you dont NEED a pci modem at all. But you cant used software modems, or winmodems. If you can, use a plug-n-play modem. they are SO incredibly nice... =)
of course, so is the ability to boot from a cd..
(thinks back...)

anyways, where theres a will, theres a way. even winmodems are starting to have a bit of support in linux. check out winmodems.org if its still up (been a while..)
I've never actually gotten a winmodem to work in nix, but I guess it could be done. On a side note, winmodems are crap in the first place. buy a hardware modem or better yet, external plug'n'play


hope this helps

- Rusty - Rusty

 

[fluid11]

If you have an ISA modem, you may have to recompile the kernel with ISA support and support for modems.


ChrisP