Newbie needs urgent help!

[AngelicKnight]

I'm a fresh newbie to Linux, and I just installed RedHat 7.2 for the first time. I have my machine running with both Windows XP and Redhat Linux 7.2 installed. The way it's set up is with one hard drive with Windows XP jumpered as the master and the slave hard drive set up with Linux. I installed LILO as the master boot. However, when I start the machine, it doesn't give me a choice as to which OS to go into and automatically starts Linux. How do I boot back up into Windows then?

 

[Deleted]

Here you go..

Create a boot.ini file within your C:/

The file content should look something like

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
rem default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP" /fastdetect
c:\linux.bin="Linux"

One note:
You will have to check your C:/ and see if your WinXP installation is in WINDOWS or WINNT.
Make the necessary changes to the above file to fit your system.

next..

On the linux side you will need to extract the first 512 bytes of your linux partition/drive.

You can do this on the CLI with

% dd if=/dev/<drive/partition> of=linux.bin bs=512 count=1

You will have to copy the output linux.bin to the root of C:/

Now you should be able to boot into either Windows or Linux successfully using the boot.ini

Using this example you can also add many other OS's easily.

I am currently running on my laptop- Win2000, RedHat, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. No floppies necessary to boot.

Hope this helps..

M. Brooks
X Concepts LLC

http://xconcepts.com

 

[thecareaga]

the lilo takes over boot operation and, depending on how you set it up, either boots directly into linux or gives you a choice (prompt screen). if you don't get a choice, you'll have to boot from a dos floppy (get a dos 6.22 at bootdisk.com) and type in "fdisk /mbr" (without the quotes) to wipe the lilo off your disk. then go into xp and format the linux disk... reinstall linux and, when prompted about o/s's, tell it you want a choice and a timeout period of 30 seconds or so before booting into linux.
If you can get a copy of Mandrake 9.0 or .1 it'll be even easier.

 

[franklin97355]

AngelicKnight: If I read your post right you are booting into Linux. If so find the file lilo.conf and modify it to allow multi boot (do a google search for lilo.conf) and then run /sbin/lilo to recompile lilo. There should be choices then.

WARNING!! If you run fdisk /mbr you will remove lilo from the mbr and then you will not be able to boot into linux without a linux boot disk.

 

[AngelicKnight]

Well, I haven't had luck with this yet, but I'm trying something else. I made a boot disk off another XP machine and am trying to use it to boot. Only problem is, I'm still not too swooft on the command line, so once the "A:/" pops up, I don't know what to do next! What from here?

 

[AngelicKnight]

Ok, in addition to my above question about booting from the A:/ prompt, here's what my LILO looks like in the boot manager thus far:

Ok, this what the code looks like in Boot Manager:

prompt
timeout="50"
default=winxp
boot="/dev/hda"
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot/b
message=/boot/message
linear

image="/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.7-10"
label="linux"
initrd="/boot/initrd-2.4.7-10.img"
read-only
root="/dev/hdb2"
append="bdc=ide-scsi"

other=/dev/hda
label=linux

----------------------------------
Nonetheless, I'm still given no option and it automatically boots into Linux.

 

[flugh]

Try this (making some assumptions about partition locations from your previous post)

prompt
timeout=50
default=winxp
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot/b
message=/boot/message
linear

label=linux
  image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.7-10
  initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.7-10.img
  read-only
  root=/dev/hdb2
  append="hdc=ide-scsi"
other=/dev/hda1
  label=winxp

----
JBR

 

[AngelicKnight]

I changed LILO as suggested, and it almost worked. I was finally given an option, and WinXP started to boot up when I selected it. However, once it tried to start up, I was told that the checkdisk was not found, and then Windows would just reboot. So I still can't get in!

So, I then tried using the Windows repair utility on my cd. Unlike the floppy, the fixboot and fixmbr commands did work, and were performed successfully. Nonetheless, Windows kept rebooting itself after startup, leaving then unable to log into Linux or Windows.

So, with Linux rendered useless, I removed my original hard drive with windows (the master), set up the slave (that had Linux) as a single drive and did a fresh install of WinXP. That worked.

So, the next thing I'm gonna try is to put the original WinXP hard drive back in, but set it up as the slave this time, and see if I can then access its contents. If that doesn't work -- Any other ideas?