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Calling all Linux guru's

B

bwatson283

Golden Member
I am going to dual boot Linux and 2k which loader do i use?

I had Grub loaded and it overwrote the windows one, what gives?

Do i have to install one OS before the other?
 
install windows, then linux.


Grub will chainload windows, but replaces the MBR (not that it matters that much)

Windows booting linux is a pain in the arse, linux booting windows will normally be setup by the install without any worries
 
perhaps the grub config file was not auto modified or not modified correctly to boot windows. here is a link on how to modify for dual boot using gentoo - http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Dual_boot most of the information there should be specific to grub though. it also depends on how you have everything installed? do you have just one physical drive with different partitions? or two physical drives (one for linux & one for windows) - this is what i have setup and you need to add additional lines to the grub config file to make this work.
 
I've never had problems with Grub autoconfiguring to boot windows, but booting windows is well documented, and you should be able to modify grub.conf to add it. What distro?
 
That's kinda weird. Suse and Ubuntu have always detected my other hard drives and ntfs partitions before. Your distro is not detecting it for some reason.. But yeah first install windows then install linux.
 
Grub surely does recognize windows during install time as a fat32 or ntfs partition. Just ensure that you install windows first. Did you by any chance delete the windows partition during installation of linux which is why grub is not identifying it?
 
even if it doesn't recognize Windows , you can edit grub.conf (or menu.lst ) under /boot/grub folder, add line for windows, and voila.

 
What happens when you need to reinstall windows XP?

I was using Grub for a dualboot FC4 and XP on a single 160GB PATA drive.

There appears to be no way to use the XP install CD, as it won't even recognize that an HDD is installed in the computer.

What is the methodology for reinstalling XP in this environment? I had to start all over and reinstall both XP and Linux.
 
Originally posted by: saabman
What happens when you need to reinstall windows XP?

I was using Grub for a dualboot FC4 and XP on a single 160GB PATA drive.

There appears to be no way to use the XP install CD, as it won't even recognize that an HDD is installed in the computer.

What is the methodology for reinstalling XP in this environment? I had to start all over and reinstall both XP and Linux.
Click to expand...

Windows should still see the drive just fine. The bigges tproblem with that is that windows overwrites the MBR, so you have to repair/reinstall grub (grub-instal hd0 or something like that). I would back up your /boot to make sure your grub settings are saved.


I've done this several times.
 
I seem to remember grub asking to be installed in one of two places (MBR or the /boot of linux partition?).

I don't remember which one I selected, but could that have influenced my XP reinstall?

Which is the best location for grub install?


 
What happens when you need to reinstall windows XP?
Click to expand...

You figure out why XP is broke and fix it instead of reinstalling it.

I don't remember which one I selected, but could that have influenced my XP reinstall?
Click to expand...

Yes, if you install GRUB to the boot sectory on /boot you'll have to setup the Windows boot loader to boot Linux, which is a PITA compared to editing GRUB's menu.lst to boot Windows. But the upside is that a Windows reinstall shouldn't affect GRUB then.

Which is the best location for grub install?
Click to expand...

The MBR.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
What happens when you need to reinstall windows XP?
Click to expand...

You figure out why XP is broke and fix it instead of reinstalling it.
Click to expand...

That's a problem when the XP rescue disk wouldn't work either, so there was no way to fix XP.

Any suggestions for that situation?



 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
What happens when you need to reinstall windows XP?
Click to expand...

You figure out why XP is broke and fix it instead of reinstalling it.

I don't remember which one I selected, but could that have influenced my XP reinstall?
Click to expand...

Yes, if you install GRUB to the boot sectory on /boot you'll have to setup the Windows boot loader to boot Linux, which is a PITA compared to editing GRUB's menu.lst to boot Windows. But the upside is that a Windows reinstall shouldn't affect GRUB then.

Which is the best location for grub install?
Click to expand...

The MBR.
Click to expand...


There is another way, to install GRUB on linux partition and then using BOOTPART program use Windows XP boot loader to boot to linux. This way, GRUB always stays, every OS has its own boot loader that doesn't affect other; but it is for advanced users.
 
That's a problem when the XP rescue disk wouldn't work either, so there was no way to fix XP.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's just me, but back when I used Windows the only time I couldn't fix the problem was when there was a hardware problem of some kind. I'm a lot less adept with Windows than I used to be, but off the top of my head I can't think of a problem that I coudln't fix with a BartPE disc and time.
 
Sorry to go off-topic but I've been using Windows for far longer than I've used Linux and after 6 months of using Linux it's a piece of cake to fix compared to Windows. I am still on my first Ubuntu install (through PSU failure [corrupt partition table], a changing root partition, separating a home directory, and an overwritten bootloader). There has not been one problem I gave up on with Linux (on my machine anyway). The errors just make a lot more sense than Windows'. "DCOM server failed to register..." what? There is no low-level console shell with Windows (it's always in GUI mode) which makes it especially difficult to fix. The Recovery Console is a step forward but it's too limited for my tastes. Also, it seems more sensitive to errors. If the "DCOM server" fails, basically nothing works, the desktop freezes up. Just a waste of my time to fight with it, I will just reinstall it and give it what it wants.
 
editting the silly grub configuration file is very simple. Also if you mess up you can access the grub command line and enter the boot commands manually. It even has tab completion.

And each time grub boots up it looks at that file so it's not like even have to do some bizzare command line thing to get it to work.

Sure the Linux installer detects and setup grub correctly most of the time, but all it's doing is just editing the file automaticly for you.

To edit grub configuration file it's located in /boot/grub/menu.lst
Make a backup of the file in case you edit it wrong.
cp /boot/grub/menu.list /boot/grub/menu.list.backup
That way you can just copy the backup file over the bad one to undo the changes.

Then at the end of the file you add:
title Microsoft Windows
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1
Click to expand...

hd0 would be the first harddrive. hd0,0 would be the first partition on the first harddrive.

If you accidently pick the wrong (hd0,0) entry you can work around it at boot up by when you get to the grub menu you hit 'e' for "edit". Select the "Microsoft Windows" entry, then select the 'root' line and then fix it. Again it when you hit the tab button a couple times grub will give you a list of possible correct entries.

It's pretty simple. Once you do a couple boot entry changes in grub it makes sense and is easy to remember.

the only PITA thing that you can do is install Windows after you install Linux and then you have to use a rescue cdrom to restore the Linux bootloader.

That and more is described in
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Dapper#How_...e_GRUB_menu_after_Windows_installation

You know how if you go to a computer section of a book store you can find popular titles like the 'Missing Manual for OS X' and such that contains all the little tips and tweaks to deal with issues that crop up time to time? Well it's not missing for Ubuntu. 😛 (at least not for the most part)
 
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