Multi OS trashed by Win2000 1

[schu]

I installed ME on the primary partition.
The installed Win2000 on a second partition.
Everything went fine, and Win2000 allowed me to boot into either O/S.

I then got my copy of Redhat 6.2
created a third partition /hda3 as a swap partition.
and a fourth partition /hda4 as the root partition.

During install I specifically installed LILO in /hda4
and created a boot disk.

I booted from the bootdisk and copied the /hda4 boot sector onto a blank Dos floppy.

I removed the disk, shutdown and reboot.

The Win2000 does not boot, I get a Ntoskrnl corrupt error. Win Me boots fine. But now I cannot add the linux boot image to the 2000 boot.ini

Any suggestions. Do I reinstall the whole 2000, or the whole system (or just do a Win 2000 repair).

 

[bubak]

and lilo doesn't boot it? What 'bout tryng 2 install lilo on hda1 and boot from it? (selecting between me/2000 and linux)?

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

Unless you want to use a commercial bootloader like System Commander 2000, you can use lilo for all of this. What you have to do is install lilo into the MBR (/dev/hda) and set it to be able to chain load the nt loader. Add the following to /etc/lilo.conf :

other = /dev/hda1
label = WIN2K
loader = /boot/chain.b
unsafe

(where /dev/hda1 is set to the partition that W2K is in)
[also change the 'install' line to 'install=/dev/hda']

Then (as root) do '/sbin/lilo -v' to update the actual binary lilo image. Reboot. Hopefully there should be a 'WIN2K' option (press 'Tab' at the boot prompt) and choosing that should chain-load the NT boot code.

However, firstly you will have to repair the damaged W2K installation with a 'repair'.

Hope this is clear !
Rgds

 

[schu]

Thanks,

But just to make sure I got it right.
I now repaired the NT partition.

So I change the lilo.conf
so that I add and extra config for the win 2000 boot sector, and change the LILO boot to /hda

Now running '/sbin/lilo -v' will recreate my boot Linux boot sector from /hda4 to /hda

I want to know will LILO auto save the Win 200 boot sector to /boot/chain.b or do I have to create it manually. (I don't want to reinstall all three O/Ss again).

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

The /boot/chain.b is just code to chain-load another boot-loader in the stated partition, i.e. its not a saved boot sector. The 'real' W2K/NT boot code is in the boot sector of the /dev/hda1 partition.

Rgds

 

[schu]

Thanks,

My Win 2000 is in /hda2 and Win ME in /hda1, I can select from Windows and Windows 2000 on start up does this mean the Win 2000 has placed it's boot sector in /hda1.

Also isn't /hda same as /hda1?

Okay I know I should try it but, I would like to know what I am doing. Just in case!

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

No.. /dev/hda means the physical disk whereas /dev/hda1 means the first primary partition on that disk, /dev/hda2 is the second primary partition on that disk, etc. A windows type master boot record just reads the partition table, finds which partition is marked as 'active', and then loads the boot loader from the active partition. I believe if you have an existing fat16/fat32 partition on /dev/hda1 W2K will indeed always install the boot loader on /dev/hda1. If you look in c:\boot.ini you will see the reference to the partition where the actual NT/W2K image is installed.

Under linux you can look at the partition table with '/sbin/fdisk -l /dev/hda'.

Hope thats a bit clearer...

Rgds

 

[schu]

Great,

It Works!!!

Thanks ifincham