Dual Boot Linux and Windows

[TheRyuu]

Alright, I recently installed linux on an older IDE hard drive that I had. (120GB WD) I was planning to have a dual boot with Windows so that I have Windows on my RAID0 array (Nvidia controller) and have Linux on my extra IDE hard drive.

However I can't seem to get the GRUB loader or the boot.ini file to have both in it. I'm guessing GRUB can't see the Windows drive because it's a RAID0 and I have no idea what to do in the boot.ini to get it to work.

Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[postmortemIA]

That is not a easy task, due to problem with GRUB loader (not GNOME loader) seeing two disk drives instead of one. Even if you add your linux entry to boot.ini, GRUB is gonna be very confused.

However , there are few things you can do, assuming you are booting from NV RAID as primary boot device. If not, then it should be all easy.

a. Install GRUB on MBR of 120GB drive, and switch boot order when you want to boot to linux

b. Make GRUB bootable CD-ROM (http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual...de/Making-a-GRUB-bootable-CD-ROM.html) and boot to linux from it. Make sure you add menu.lst or grub.conf so you don't have to type commands manually each time.

c. Install Fedora Core 5 on your RAID0 drive.

 

[TheRyuu]

Thats what I've been doing. To boot from linux all I really have to do is change the primary boot drive to the 120GB drive. When I want windows, I make in the Nvidia RAID Array.

It's just annoying to change it and go in the bios.

I'll give b a shot though.

And why would I want to do c...
Thats the point of a dual boot system, so I can play my games on Windows and still play with Linux.

 

[imported_LoKe]

Boot from a floppy or USB stick?

 

[cleverhandle]

You should be able to use ntloader as a chain loader to get you to Grub. The basic idea is load Grub to the MBR of the IDE disk, then copy an image of that MBR to a location that Windows can read. You can see the details here.

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle
You should be able to use ntloader as a chain loader to get you to Grub. The basic idea is load Grub to the MBR of the IDE disk, then copy an image of that MBR to a location that Windows can read. You can see the details here.

I can't seem to get the dd command to work. Any ideas? It says file not found or somethign like that. Do I need to do it from another location? Cause in the Terminal it says deskstop after my user name. Sorry, new to Linux.

Is there any other way to get the MBR? (or help me get the above working?

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
I can't seem to get the dd command to work. Any ideas? It says file not found or somethign like that.

Are you using the correct device (/dev/hda, /dev/hdb, whatever)? Look in the output of dmesg to make sure. Also, if you've installed Grub to the MBR of the disk, you're going to use /dev/hda and not /dev/hda1, for example. Think about what the article is explaining and read between the lines - you're not just going to be able to copy-paste it.

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle

Originally posted by: wizboy11
I can't seem to get the dd command to work. Any ideas? It says file not found or somethign like that.

Are you using the correct device (/dev/hda, /dev/hdb, whatever)? Look in the output of dmesg to make sure. Also, if you've installed Grub to the MBR of the disk, you're going to use /dev/hda and not /dev/hda1, for example. Think about what the article is explaining and read between the lines - you're not just going to be able to copy-paste it.

Alright, I'm making progress now. Thanks.

Now I think I've run into another problem. I've copied the bootsect.lnx to my Windows Drive and whenever I select it from the boot menu all I get is "GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB" in the top left of the screen and thats it.

For now I guess I can just use the bios and change the boot order.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Now I think I've run into another problem. I've copied the bootsect.lnx to my Windows Drive and whenever I select it from the boot menu all I get is "GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB" in the top left of the screen and thats it.

Hum... could be a problem with device naming, but it's hard to say - this whole method is really hacky, which is why new users are recommended not to use onboard RAID devices in the first place. Most likely there's a problem because the grub configuration is based on BIOS disk numbering, and that numbering changes when you switch the boot sequence in the BIOS. So you installed grub to use one numbering scheme, but when you try to chain boot through ntloader it's seeing a different one. And the RAID device may mess it up further. If you leave the Windows array set to boot, boot from a rescue CD, and reconfigure grub from that environment it may work better.

I didn't look into your controller, either, it's possible that the kernel may support it if you track down a module or get a newer version. Then you should be able to handle booting both systems through Grub.

But all in all, this may be one of those things that's very difficult to accomplish if you don't already know what you're doing. Creating a GRUB boot floppy (or boot CD) would be much easier.

 

[postmortemIA]

There's program called BOOTPART (winimage.com) to help you use NT loader to load GRUB. But it won't work on RAID as I stated above, RAID meses up how GRUB sees hard drives. GRUB sees different boot order devices plus it sees one more hard drive than there is due to RAID. I've tried many times, and gave up. Having bootable CD-ROM is kind of convinient, just pop CD and boot.

You can try disk swapping (Advanced GRUB commands http://www.bo.infn.it/alice/alice-doc/mll-doc/linux/advanced/node50.html) , to change order of devices on fly, but it didn't work for me.