Topic awaiting preservation: Dual boot - 2 hard drives question

OK, here is what I have. New computer with XP on it. I have another hard drive that I currently have partitioned with XP and Linux. I would like some advice on how to go about doing a dual boot with two hard drives

What I would like to do is to unplug the new hard drive, plug up the old hard drive and install just linux on it. The reason I want to unplug the new one is that I don't want to risk screwing up the new drive (I'm scarred )

So, if I uplug new drive, plug up old drive, install linux, then set the linux drive to slave and window to Master, how can I configure LILO to determine that there are two drives? Reading the man pages didn't really help much. Man pages are really confusing to me.

Seems that I can just set the Linux to slave and then tell the BIOS to boot from the second hard drive first so it gives me LILO to choose the option of Windows or Linux.

I really don't want to install LILO on the MBR of the new drive. I would rather have it boot on the slave drive first and have LILO there with the option of Windows (Master Drive) or Linux (Slave Drive).

I guess I could just reboot and go to BIOS to choose which hard drive to boot from first but that just seems like a pain in the ass to have to switch back and forth like that in the BIOS.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Later,

C:\

I'm not sure why you don't want LILO to install in the MBR of the new drive. Are you afraid it will cause XP to stop working? If so, you don't need to worry about that.

From what you have said, I infer that you plan to wipe the old hard drive and do a new install of Linux on it. If that is so, leave the two hard drives connected and when you start the install disc for Linux, tell it which drive to install Linus on. Linux will be installed on your old (slave) drive and LILO (or GRUB) will be installed on the MBR of the new (Master) drive. After completing the install, LILO (GRUB) will start up in the Linux partition. You can then run LILO to tell it that XP is ion the Master drive, which OS you ant to be your default on boot, and how long you want it to pause before booting to give you a chance to choose which OS to boot.

.



-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.

OK, sorry to be such a dunce, but let me get this straight.

Keep new disk as Master, put old disk as Slave.
Slap the Linux disk in and tell it to install Linux on the /dev/hdb correct? Since the old drive will be slave drive the naming of it will be /dev/hdb

Go ahead and go through the install stuff but when LILO gets ready to install tell it to put it on the MBR and it will go to the MBR of the new drive?

I think the biggest problem I have with keeping the new drive in there while doing the install would be if I chose to install it on the wrong drive and it wiped out my new drives XP altogether. That would really suck. That is why I wanted to unplug the new drive and then after pluging up the old drive, install Linux there.

quote:

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hyperbole said:

After completing the install, LILO (GRUB) will start up in the Linux partition. You can then run LILO to tell it that XP is ion the Master drive, which OS you ant to be your default on boot, and how long you want it to pause before booting to give you a chance to choose which OS to boot.

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Kind of lost me there.

"After completing the install LILO will start up in the Linux partition."
by partition are you talking about the old hard drives partition of Linux. I am hoping to just wipe it clean and start with a complete fresh Linux install.

"You can then run LILO to tell it that XP is ion the Master drive, which OS you ant to be your default on boot, and how long you want it to pause before booting to give you a chance to choose which OS to boot."

I do remember that LILO found my partition of XP but I didn't realize that it would also find my hard drive. That is if that is what you are saying.

Again, sorry for being a dunce but.........it's a scary thing

Thanks!

Later,

C:\

GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB

What version of Linux are you planning on installing? I think you are over thinking it most of this can be handled fairly simply with both drives in via the Linux installer.

the Linux install should be fairly accommodating for other OS's (Installing Windows second to Linux can be a real pain however).

Set up the XP as your Master and the second HD as the Slave and let the install do the rest. It should be fairly self evident during the Linux install which is your slave and which is your master drive (They are different sizes right?)



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

quote:

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bitdamaged said:

They are different sizes right?

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no they are both 80gig.

I think it should be familiar though. I am sure that the slave that Linux is going to go on would be /dev/hdb because primary drive is /dev/hda

Linux version is going to be Slackware 10.1

Later,

C:\



(Edited by CPrompt on 08-02-2005 18:52)