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cyphos
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Joined: 30 Apr 2002
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 3:47 am    Post subject: Booting ...but not with grub or lilo Reply with quote

Hi,

I'm wanting to use the Extended Operating System loader (XOSL) to boot between Linux and Windows XP.

I have Windows XP installed on my primary master drive, and Linux installed on my primary slave. Does anyone know of any specifics of how I should setup XOSL for my conditions?

Why I want (need) XOSL is because it can 'hide' other drives from Windows, which I need very much because everytime I boot Windows XP it takes forever to load because it gets confused about my other drive (with Linux on it) and eventually asks to check my hard drive for errors (which I always have to say no to).

Anyhow, I appreciate your help and thank you!
Cyp.
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pjp
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 3:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Have you read the FAQ from their webpage? Some seem directly related:
Quote:
I. For the very beginning

* Before starting anything, I'd like to know if I can install XOSL without reinstalling anything?
* Tell me the recommended short procedure for installing more Operating Systems and multi-booting

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Dolio
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 5:21 am    Post subject: XOSL Reply with quote

I use XOSL as my main bootloader. It at least used to be you could install XOSL on an already existing Windows partition, but that's probably only if it's FAT 32 (I think XP uses NTFS by default).

Also, I don't think XOSL can directly boot Linux yet (they said they were going to try to arrange that, but I haven't really seen any activity there for about a year), so you'll still need to install Grub or Lilo, just on the boot sector of your root/boot partition (sorry if you already knew that, just making sure).

XOSL is nice and pretty. I'm just sad it doesn't work with my USB mouse :(.
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Larde
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 9:06 am    Post subject: Re: Booting ...but not with grub or lilo Reply with quote

Hi!

cyphos wrote:
Why I want (need) XOSL is because it can 'hide' other drives from Windows


Well, I don't try to convince not to use XOSL, but if that's the killer-feature for you, grub can do that as well... :-)

Yours,
Larde
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ebichu
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 12:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use XOSL too. I have it installed in a primary Windows FAT32 boot partition, but it can also be installed in its own partition. If your Windows XP partition is NTFS, you will need to reinstall it on FAT32 or install XOSL in its own small primary partition. I currently use it to boot Windows 98SE, Windows 2000, Deadrat 7.3 and Gentoo, but have another partition set aside for Windows XP. Deadrat and Gentoo each have their own secondary GRUB menu where I can specify kernel parameters etc. (Yes, I know I could just use a single GRUB, but I like it this way!)

As for hiding things from Windows, you can only hide Windows partitions from Windows! It is recommended to make the last logical partition on the drive a Windows partition to avoid confusing various flavours of Windows (not sure about XP). This partition can be made very small (one cylinder) if you don't have anything useful to put in it. If you're very clever you can make it a combined Windows/Linux swap partition, but that can be a little dangerous.
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harsha
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 8:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi,
I hope u have your problem solved already. Just a suggestion though, if u ever reinstall/reformat everything, install windows first. Also, when u make partitions for linux(swap, root, boot, etc), make them in windows, but make sure Windows does not assign a drive letter to those partitions. By default, whenever u create a partition, it assigns the next available drive letter(E,F..so on). Make sure u remove that map. If u have a drive letter assigned to a partition, windows will try to "mount" it at boot. If it doesnt understand the file system, it tries to "check" it.
If u have both of them installed already, you could just boot to windows, open Disk Management(I hope u are using Win2k cuz everything else just plain sucks!) and remove the drive letter mappings to all the linux partitions. You shouldnt see the "check" messages at boot again. This way, u dont have to do any hiding of partitions wtsoever. This is how I have on my system, and they seem to co-exist very peacefully... :D
Another preference of mine is to use different boot loaders for different operating systems. For example, in my machine, I have 3 primary and 1 extended partitions. Extended is further divided into 3 logical(one of them being assigned a swap partition for linux). This swap partition doesnt have a drive letter mapped to it in windows. In each of these primary parittions, I have a boot loader(first sector of that partition). First one is Gentoo, so its Grub(I use chainloader to point to windows in the second and third), Second is Windows(games partition) uses the standard NTboot loader(boot.ini). Again, boot.ini can be chaged to point to Gentoo at boot time. Third again is Windows(Work), with the same setup. This way, whenever I delete a partition, I remove the OS and its associated boot loader, without causing any "harm" to the other partitions, or other boot loaders. Since all the boot loaders(including the one that comes with windows) can boot to other OS's, its a perfect setup.

Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Harsha
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