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Problem with Linux/XP dual boot

S

Snoozy

Member
I followed the guide from this site: http://www.anandtech.com/guides.viewfaq.html?i=58

I did all the steps and can boot to Linux with my disk, but when I select Linux from the Windows Boot Loader screen I just get a blinking cursor at top left and then NOTHING ELSE. I usually just turn off power and re-boot with my boot disk. How can I do this? Also If I let red hat install LILO on the MBR, then am I screwed out of windows? Or will LILO recognize windows and add it as an option (remeber this is XP we're talking about).

Right now I have 1 partition with XP on it and a 2nd with Red Hat Linux 7.0 (soon to be 7.2) and I want to be able to dual boot, I don't really care which boot loader I use, just so long as it works!
 
For some reason, I had the same problem with the cursor on the black screen. I reinstalled RedHat 7.2 and installed Lilo on the MBR. Also, windows didn't show up for me when I installed lilo, so I followed this link:link
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but if I install LILO on the MBR then I overwrite the Windows Boot Loader, so can I still boot to windows?

Pardon my ignorance but what is grub?

 
Yes, if you install lilo on the mbr then you overwrite the ntbooloader. Use the link that I gave you to add windows to the lilo options. That way you can have lilo set up and it'll give you the option to boot to linux or xp
 
Grub is the "GRand Unified Bootloader" or something like that.

It's a replacement for lilo.

I used it recently on a default RH7.2 install. It worked fine but I think lilo is a safer bet.
 
Ok, now I get what you were showing me, how can I move LILO to the MBR? Do I have to re-install? Right now it is on the beginning of my Linux Partition
 
No reinstall necessary. If you want to use lilo you just need to tell it where to install itself in the /etc/lilo.conf file.

boot=/dev/hda

will install it in the mbr. After changing this line you will need to rerun the lilo command to reconfigure it.

You should see some like...

bash-2.05a# lilo
Added Linux *
Added SAFE
Added Windows98
Added FreeBSD

If it's successful.

If something goes wrong and you want to replace the old boot record I *think* that you can just type

lilo -u




 
When I do that, I get an error saying:

Device 0cx023 (something like that) is beyone the 1024 cylender limit

What is this? How do I get rid of it?
 
This problem often occurs with the Windows boot loader. I'm not sure about XP, but 2000 cannot boot into any partition beyond 1024 cylinders (you should have gotten a warning about this when installing linux). Instead of moving lilo to the MBR, I would suggest downloading a third party boot loader such as
gag. It works great and looks cool!
 
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