windows 98 dual boot

[alexaweb]

Hi,

I had a working configuration dual booting win 98 and NT on one drive using NT's boot loader.

Then I installed a second HD in which I installed redhat 7.1

Everything worked fine, although I had to boot linux from a floppy disk.

I wanted to get rid of NT, so I deleted the files, and now I changed lilo to the MBR of the windows drive (to avoid booting from floppy). However, I now can only boot linux. When I select Windows in lilo, all that happens is lilo getting loaded again, and again.

How can I use lilo to boot both linux and Windows 98??. Any help??

THX

 

[Nostradamus]

look in /etc/lilo.conf and make sure that the windows part points to the correct device (/dev/hda1, for instance).
make sure you run /sbin/lilo after changes to the lilo.conf
/Sören

 

[Guest_imported]

Ok, I'm going to take you through the entire dual boot install process.
1. backup inportant files and programs that cannot be reinstalled.

2. delete all partitions using linux's fdisk.

3. Using fdisk on a dos boot disk, create the largest pri-dos partition that you can.

4. if the pri-dos was unable to take up the entire hd, then create an extended dos, making sure that the pri-dos ios the only partition at this point.
5. format both as dos.

6. restart computer with boot disk in floppy.

7. run fdisk

8. delete both partitions and create a primary dos partition, while levaing empty space linux.

9. install windows, if you can't use the boot disk to run dos, switch to cd drive (which could be any letter, so try all of them) and find the setup or install file, then run it in dos.

10. finish everything you need to finish for windows

11. install linux on the existing space, while leaving some space for the swap partition (approx. 200 mb).

12. be sure that the dos, linux native, and swap partitions are there, then, in the window where you can select to make a boot disk for linux, or make the primary boot partition on the dos partition makew sure that the label for the dos partition is Windows. or something of that sort.

(if you are using ME, or a windows o/s that does not run on dos, still follow the directions, and the windows install will take care of things.)

13. Be aware that the more users you have in linux the more the space is divided into halfs, and quarters and so-on.

If you have any ?'s let me know.

 

[Guest_imported]

typo- #9


I all you get is LI, use the boot disk to run th esetup or install file on the cdrom, which could be any drive letter(boot disk must have cd rom support)

 

[ifincham]

Hi,



Its difficult to be sure but unless you successfully booted win98 after 'deleting NT' then you probably didn't restore the standalone win98 boot files.



As long as you have a working linux boot floppy what I would do is use the windows install cd or a boot floppy to get access to the C:\ drive and do a 'sys c:' to re-write the win98 system files. Then try to boot it through lilo. If it still doesn't work you can also try a 'fdisk /mbr'. Once you've got win98 booting again, if you had to re-write the mbr just boot linux with your linux floppy and once again re-install lilo into the MBR making sure you've got a section in your /etc/lilo.conf like :



other=/dev/hda1

label=win98



Update lilo with '/sbin/lilo -v' & reboot....



Rgds

 

[schu]

My multi boot installation trashed my Win 2000,
so I reinstalled Win2000 and copied my Linux Boot sector to linux.bin in C: and added it to the Windows boot.ini.

I get exactly the same as Alpha_8000.

Anyway, ifincham is helping me out with the problem in my thread as well.

 

[Guest_imported]

Whatever you do, DO NOT RUN FDISK /MBR II YOU INTEND TO DUAL BOOT WITH LINUX AND WINDOWS

First make the dos/windows partition, then, on the at partition install windows.
After that use the linux cd to make the swap and native Linux partition, then install linux, but if you do fdisk /mbr after installing linux, it will copy over the linux boot partition and will only boot Windows, not even recognizing that Linux is on the HD, Therefor, LILO never loads...

 

[ifincham]

Hi,









The point is you have to get windows working first because if you re-install it it zaps lilo. So, as I said above, providing you have a linux boot floppy you can avoid a complete win re-install by doing sys c: & fdisk /mbr if necessary and then recovering lilo in the mbr by booting with the linux floppy and re-running lilo.




The entry in lilo.conf that influences where lilo places the boot sector is 'boot='. So if you want to install lilo in the mbr (wherever it is now) you just edit /etc/lilo.conf and make it look like :









boot = /dev/hda









Then do /sbin/lilo to update the actual boot record using the new config.









Rgds

 

[Guest_imported]

I tried that exact thing before I ended up reinstalling Linux, the while idea was to boot without a boot disk, granged that with a couple of unix commands you could change the boot record to LILO, I was assuming that he didn't know how to do that, which, if he is posting that message, he probably doesn't, but still, good point...