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Can't dual boot XP and Linux


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#1
xp_even

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I have Windows XP installed on my SATA hard drive.Recently I also installed Red Hat on a different PC having an IDE hard drive.

Now I have connected the IDE drive with the first PC running XP but I am not able to boot into Linux.It directly boots XP.

I would like an OS menu displayed at startup.Please help...
Thanks Edit/Delete Message
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#2
hawklord

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as your linux was installed on a different pc - this may not work,

worth a try though, but its up to you

do you have the F11 boot option on your pc ?

a way to find out is reboot your pc and as soon as it starts up start tapping F11 - with a little luck you should be presented with a boot options screen,
choose your rhl drive by using the up and down arrows, then enter

let me know what happens
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#3
Kemasa

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I think there is a way to get XP to allow for a dual boot, but I am not sure. Another way is to is re-install a version of Linux and install Grub, which will allow you to select which OS you want. It is best to have a partition for the boot files to reside in (around 100Mb). This allows you to wipe out either OS without having a problem booting the system.

You could use something like qtparted, on the Knoppix disk, to resize the normal boot disk for the boot partition, but make sure that you back up everything first. In general it should work, but you never know when something could go wrong and you don't want to lose your data.
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#4
hawklord

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kemasa has a point, but i think that if rhl boots ok and runs ok (the reason for the F11) then its an easy matter of swapping disks around and editing rhl's menu.lst to add xp to grub - a lot less work than backing up, partitioning and reinstalling
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#5
Kemasa

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Backups are a good idea since you never know when something will fail. After that, resizing the partition is easy, assuming it works correctly :-). The reinstall would just be for the Linux system. It is also possible to copy all of the data in the root partition under boot, but you need to make sure you get everything. That is why a reinstall tends to be easier. You can also manually install grub, but again, you need to know what you are doing.

If you swap disks, XP might have a problem since I believe it expects it to be on the first disk.
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#6
hawklord

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If you swap disks, XP might have a problem since I believe it expects it to be on the first disk.

sorry but this is not true, my linux is on the first disk (primary master) and i boot w2k from the primary slave (as slave) + xp from the secondary slave (dvd = master, xp = slave) - all controlled by grub,
all i need do in case of any hdd failure is set any one to primary master and i'm back and running
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#7
Kemasa

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Did you move the disk or did you install it when it was in that location?

Part of my concern is in moving the disk and if there is anything which might get confused due to that.
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#8
hawklord

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i can explain how i did it, but i would be hijacking this thread,

there would be no problems as far as i can tell and nothing can get confused, it would just be that the o/p needs to check whether redhat works ok with taking the drive out of another system
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#9
Kemasa

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I don't see a problem with posting what you did since it could help xp_even with what he is trying to do and that is the main goal.

You are correct that it could be an issue that RedHat was installed on another machine since unless the hardware was exactly the same, there could be some incorrect drivers/settings. It should not be too difficult to fix though. It is best to install it on the actual machine though.
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#10
xp_even

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Red Hat doesn't seem to detect the SATA drive on which my XP is installed.

Can I modify the Windows boot loader somehow and allow the system to boot into the other (IDE) drive where Linux is installed?
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#11
hawklord

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it won't untill you mount the drive - how do you want to boot ?

grub (in my opinion) is the better bootloader, this is the linux one, ntldr is the windows one,
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#12
hawklord

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ok then - for next time,

can you open a terminal in redhat and type
cat /proc/partitions
then enter, this will list your hdd's and partitions, post the output

Edited by hawklord, 03 May 2009 - 12:29 PM.

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#13
Havoc62381

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If the ide drive you installed RH has the grub stage 2 files on it i.e. has the /boot partition the old RH box was using, then they should still be there. You only need to put grub stage 1 in the MBR. Try using the Super grub live cd SuperGrub

p.s. if the above works your grub.conf file will most lickly not be correct for the current machine, and while your system might boot to grub. Grub my not be able to boot to RH without a few minor tweaks.
p.p.s If the Windows partition settings in your grub.conf are missing or wrong you will not be able to boot to windows either. If you need help with your grub.conf file post back and I can try to help you out.
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