[Marc Parchow Figueiredo]

About My System:
Processor: Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
Bios: ASUS P5N-E SLI ACPI BIOS Revision 0703
Memory: 2Gb RAM
Hard Disk: 2 SATA 250Gb using Raid1 + 1 IDE 3GB (for my Pagefile) + 1 SATA 250Gb eventually for Linux on dual-boot
Windows XP Professional SP2: 5.1 (Build 2600)
Firefox Browser but IE still installed.


About my problem:
I have two SATA disks working in RAID1 with Windows XP, one 3GB IDE Disk for the Pagefile and another RAID Disk installed for Linux.
I've already installed Dabian Linux on the disk but without the bootloader because Grub didn't recognize windows on the RAID 1 - so I have no idea of how to configure the Dual Boot and I need your Help with that.

Is it possible to msconfig the boot.ini file? I'd like to be prompted at startup and press 1 for linux and 2 for windows or something like that.

Can you Help?

Cheers, Marc

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I have seen it not recognize the partition for some strange reason, but you can enter it manually if you use grub. The file is /boot/grub/menu.lst and you can edit it with any Linux editor.

An example:

title Windoze
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

This boots the first partition on the first disk.

I don't know if you can get Windoze to boot Linux, but I don't think you can, at least not easily.

[Kemasa]

I have seen it not recognize the partition for some strange reason, but you can enter it manually if you use grub. The file is /boot/grub/menu.lst and you can edit it with any Linux editor.

An example:

title Windoze
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

This boots the first partition on the first disk.

I don't know if you can get Windoze to boot Linux, but I don't think you can, at least not easily.

[Marc Parchow Figueiredo]

Right now my boot.ini file looks like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows WP Professional"/fastdetect/NoExecute=OptIn

As I understand this, and correct me if i'm mistaken, the boot.ini file is independent to any operating systems and it tells the computer were the operatin system is.

If I am right i'd like to know what the boot.ini file would look like if I had a Windows/Linux Dual-boot where I choose at startup wich operating system i want.

I can reconfigure the bios to start booting the linux disk - once Linux loads I can go to /boot/grub/menu.lst and manually configure the grub boot loader - but I neet to know how.

(help please)

[Kemasa]

I am not familiar with the windoze boot process. I gave you an example entry for the grub boot. Add that, with the correct disk and partition information, to the /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

[Marc Parchow Figueiredo]

OK, I can try. If I mess up the boot process - can I loose my Windows (or Windoze)?...

[Kemasa]

If you have the Windoze install disk, you should be able to reinstall the boot loader, if you need to. I can not think of anything which could cause you to lose an installed system, assuming you just do normal things, like installing a new boot loader. Make sure that you have the Windoze install disk in case you have to go back.

It is best to have a separate boot partitiion (around 100Mb) so that you can reload Linux or even remove it without having a problem.