[HOWTO] HPT, Promise, Medley, Intel, Nvidia RAID Dualboot
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kabage
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Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 340
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 Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:26 am Post subject: poo,poo crap piddle no win boot |
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I'm not used to having these uniquie problems.
This is unique because
I cant do what others in this thread have done, by making the 2nd partition active and chainloading win.
If I make the /boot partition inactive, grub does not come up.
If I make the /boot partition and the second partion active - still no win boot, lin boots fine.
Maybe reverse partitions?
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Erlend
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Joined: 26 Dec 2004
Posts: 493
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:14 am Post subject: |
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I trust you're using something very similar to this for windows:
| Code: | title=Windows XP
root (hd0,5)
makeactive
chainloader +1 |
Your /boot partition should be marked as "boot", and there should only be one boot marked partition. Use cfdisk to check and set this.
The active flag means a drive is bootable - only windows uses this. Boot is different from active. You don't need to bother setting partitions as active apart from by using the makeactive grub command on windows.
Just a thought - boot linux umount /boot (to make sure it isn't mounted) and browse to /boot - the directory should be basically empty. If not, I would worry that you might have installed grub on the wrong partition - i.e. on your linux / partition. |
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kabage
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Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 340
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:10 pm Post subject: Yeah something like that - let me start at the beginning |
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From irondogs howto
| Quote: | Prerequisites
* Partitioning is already done
* You have Windows installed on the second partition o/t raid
* You have a bootpartition which is allways wise when dualbooting
* The bootpartition is the first partition on the raid (The first partition is going to be used for /boot |
the 2nd prerquisite - windows installed on second partition.
I found this virtually impossible -- I made the first partition to small for windows but it still insists on formating and putting a few files like boot ini , sys volume info and at least one other
So windows will tell you it is installed on d:/ drive - but its boot files are not
So I did this whole how to on the assumption that that shouldn't matter ( in fact I did get windows to boot at one point.) Thats probably not an issue if C:/ drive and /boot are the same place?
(* I actually had grub able to boot windows at one time before I got the initrd working , then as you know I got it to boot gentoo)
Anyway back to the foundation of this howto,
1. I set up a 50 mb partition for the first , then a 100gb or whatever for the real install
2. I would then try deleting the first partition.
3. winxp would have something like this
free space 50 mb
d:/ raw 100 gb 99 gb free
free space (rest of the array)
4. you then pick the partition to install windows only one choice right ?
But this is where xp screws me. Saying the it has to put files on the mbr and there is not a compatible win partition -- I must format - the mbr , and then gives format choices
5. I dont how everyone else in this thread is able to setup xp on the 2nd partition , from my point of view its impossible. it puts 3 or files on the first partition regardless of what you want.
My conclusion is screwed to
On the one hand it feels like yes
(hd0,1) should not work since the boot.ini is at (hd0,0)
But I did get the windows array to boot at least once
(seems unrepeatable though and was back when I was messing with initrd on the lin side)
but also why....
does win have to be on the 2nd partition ? Cant I just use a /boot directory giving win the first partition 100G and linux the 2nd partition or Rest of the array?
do I need a swap partition?
Currently I have 2 other disks in my array , starting again.. I'm also trying the onchip via this time.
Maybe I'll really smoke myself and put all 4 disks in
Anyway I'll experiment with the first two disks tomorow, but please Master Erlend, don't give up me!
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Erlend
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Joined: 26 Dec 2004
Posts: 493
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | do I need a swap partition? |
For linux? A swap partition is a good idea unless you've got tonnes of ram.
| Quote: | | (hd0,1) should not work since the boot.ini is at (hd0,0) |
Have you moved boot.ini? You certainly shouldn't have - it should be in the partition windows is actually installed in.
| Quote: | | Cant I just use a /boot directory giving win the first partition 100G and linux the 2nd partition or Rest of the array? |
I actually don't have my first parition as /boot - my first partition is Windows, second is linux swap, third is linux /, and fourth is /boot - this isn't really a very nice setup though: it might not work for everyone.
| Quote: | | 5. I dont how everyone else in this thread is able to setup xp on the 2nd partition , from my point of view its impossible. it puts 3 or files on the first partition regardless of what you want. |
Use grub "hide (hd0,0)" or more specifically, something like:
| Code: | title Windows XP on 3rd partition
hide (hd0,0)
hide (hd0,1)
unhide (hd0,2)
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
chainloader +1
makeactive
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This might be helpful:
http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Multiboot-with-GRUB.html#ss2.6
Erlend |
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kabage
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Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 340
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:07 am Post subject: new disks new controller different setup same problem |
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With this array I have kept it to the minimal to dual boot
partition 1 (hd0,0) pdc_hadjcchba1 = winxp (about 32G so I could keep it a fat filesystem.
partition 2 (hd0,4) pdc_hadjcchba5 = gentoo (100+ G )
partition 3 (hd0,5) pdc_hadjcchba6 = swap partition
linux boot fine in this set-up , everytime I ask consistantly.
Win - NO errors it just boots grub, timer running and everything as if I asked to boot the loader not the first sector. (or first sector + 1 ) if I am understanding
chainloader command correctly.
Did -try
unhide (hd0,0)
hide (hd0,4)
hide (hd0,5)
to the win section still same results
| Code: | timeout 30
default 0
title New linux boot
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/xdream-v1 root=/dev/ram0 real_root=/dev/mapper/pdc_hadjcchba5 init=/linuxrc
initrd /boot/initrd
title WinXp
root (hd0,0)
rootnoverify
chainloader +1
makeactive
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I'm going to give lilo, and yes with the patch a try.
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kabage
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:18 am Post subject: Lilo similar to Grub - smudge better |
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Lilo boots gentoo fine
Winxp at least is giving me a li 04 04 error (unable to find sector) I guess that beats booting to itself.
I believe it is trying to use sector 63 for winxp , but I'm not sure how to determine the correct sector or tell lilo even if I knew.
Here is my /etc/lilo.conf
| Code: |
boot=/dev/mapper/pdc_hadjcchba
#map=/boot/map
#disk=/dev/mapper/pdc_hadjcchba bios=0x81
prompt
timeout=150
delay=50
default="gentoo"
image = /boot/xdream-v1
initrd=/boot/initrd
root=/dev/ram0
append="init=/linuxrc real_root=/dev/mapper/pdc_hadjcchba5"
label="gentoo"
other = /dev/mapper/pdc_hadjcchba1
label="winxp"
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The good stuff....
I can verify the via on chip and promise 378 on board , both work with dmraid, amd64, asus a8v deluxe.
Bad stuff...
Cant find any confirmation of anyone being able to dual-boot raid on am64, asus a8v deluxe mobo.
TODO
I could check many of the new bios options which may be causing a conflict. This asus has its own boot menu giving you an option of booting any device it sees.
Can even set many of the parameters on IDE devices that used to requier hdparm. Hmmmm maybe settings on my raid array need something?
Must find my wand and my pretty red shoes, or I may never get out of the matrix.
Still have sense of humor after 3 days good.
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kabage
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| Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 12:12 am Post subject: Stubborness pays off -- Dual boot solved |
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The master key for me, after following this how-to was grub setup .
| Quote: | step 9] Installing the bootloader like on: http://tienstra4.flatnet.tudelft.nl/~gerte/gen2dmraid/
Code:
# Grub should not detect bios device names itself! Do this or be a fool!:
/sbin/grub --device-map=/dev/null
grub> device (hd0,0) /dev/mapper/${devicename_of_your_bootpartition}
grub> device (hd0) /dev/mapper/${devicename_of_your_raid}
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0,0)
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The last line quote above is NOT TRUE for dual boot. At least if winxp is the first partition.
Should be
So since (hd0) is MBR and (hd0,0) is really the first boot sector of the first partition, it was overwriting files critical to winXp's boot.
Myfix
-- bad -- try to do win rescue where you press R to get a console when booting the cd but the command
fixmbr does just that only the MBR not whatever was missing from the first partition. So..... the fix
1. Had to reinstall win...
2. Immediatly booted grub floppy after win was through.
then did
| Code: |
grub> root (hd0,4) #for my linux partition where grub can find its files
grub> setup (hd0) # critical to put grub in MBR not the first boot sector of the partition
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What do I say "All the solutions are simple"
Of course it would have been a lot simpler if it came to me 3-4 days ago.
So nice, so sweet , yes yes yes....
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Erlend
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Joined: 26 Dec 2004
Posts: 493
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| Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | grub> setup (hd0,0)
The last line quote above is NOT TRUE for dual boot. At least if winxp is the first partition. |
It is correct if /boot is your first partition - most people will assume it is (as that is the most elegant dual-boot solution).
| Quote: | Should be
Code:
grub> setup (hd0) |
Only if you want grub in your MBR. Most people have a /boot partition and install grub to there. There are a couple of reasons for this:
1. When you boot linux, you don't mount your /boot partition - you only need /boot for grub and when installing new kernels - if you don't have it mounted there is less chance of something bad happening to it.
2. Say something happens to grub and it breaks - you can't boot. If it is on your /boot partition boot sector then you can just mark another partition (i.e. your windows partition) as bootable and use that temporarily.
But if it works and you're happy with it that's good.
Erlend |
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kabage
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| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 9:18 am Post subject: IMHO if the dual in boot is XP |
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It would be impossible to have your first partition as boot, since xp is going to take that partition regardless .
I'm sure there are hacks, to that but in general, just a straight install it is taking (hx,0) and (hx), that is probably an
NT kernel. ( Am i talking win!) Damn it. And I guess that is the whole problem with XP is it actually using
the MBR and the First boot sector no matter what
Even with the first two disks, since I could not trick xp out of the first partition, I thought there was no reason
that xp and gentoo could not share a fat partition (I'll get back to them mon probably to see what happens).
That brings another problem I ran into, I did try to put grub on another partiton (2-4) but at least on my hardware
the partitions are virtual so there is only one partition to boot from as far as grub, lilo or whatever win calls theirs is concerned.
Even on a regular drive though isnt grub doing the same thing (it must ) put something in the MBR, overwriting xp's 512 bytes
and then a partition table and a pointer to whatever partition you want to boot from. Unless you just put it at (hdX)
So I guess my argument would be if you lose the first 512 you will never boot off of the array again no matter where you originally put grub.
Like the raid 0 , argument that you double your chance of data loss , I would say booting from anywhere but the MBR doubles your chance of losing
your boot. (I know thats what backups are for)
You've probably seen the arguments about where to put the swap partition. Physically I would guess the middle for best performance but then I never
really see it used that much. I would think putting the boot partition at the end since you only use it once in while would be efficient.
I think I booted more times in the last few days then the last 5 or 10 years put together.
I appreciate all your help the past few days.
Thank you.
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Erlend
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Joined: 26 Dec 2004
Posts: 493
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| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:08 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | That brings another problem I ran into, I did try to put grub on another partiton (2-4) but at least on my hardware
the partitions are virtual so there is only one partition to boot from as far as grub, lilo or whatever win calls theirs is concerned. |
You can only boot off primary partitions as far as I know.
| Quote: | Even on a regular drive though isnt grub doing the same thing (it must ) put something in the MBR, overwriting xp's 512 bytes
and then a partition table and a pointer to whatever partition you want to boot from. Unless you just put it at (hdX) |
Grub doesn't overwrite the MBR. It just appends something to the end of it to redirect the booting to your /boot partition where grub is installed.
| Quote: | booting from anywhere but the MBR doubles your chance of losing
your boot. (I know thats what backups are for) |
You can just reinstall grub at any stage. Or even use a grub boot disk to get into your system.
Erlend |
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irondog
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Posts: 715
Location: Voor mijn TV. Achter mijn pc.
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| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 2:39 am Post subject: Re: IMHO if the dual in boot is XP |
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| kabage wrote: | It would be impossible to have your first partition as boot, since xp is going to take that partition regardless .
I'm sure there are hacks, to that but in general, just a straight install it is taking (hx,0) and (hx), that is probably an
NT kernel. ( Am i talking win!) Damn it. And I guess that is the whole problem with XP is it actually using
the MBR and the First boot sector no matter what |
It's very well possible to have MS Windows installed on the partition 1-4 and having /boot on one of the other four partitions. Problem is, you don't understand you should not touch the MBR written by MS Windows Setup (lets call it a microsoft MBR). So I assume you don't understand the PC bootsequence.
A pc bios supports four (4) partitions. Special partitions (called extended partitions) containing logicall partitions are an execption at this very basic x86 rule. Exteded partitions haven't got a boot record, they have their own partition table instead. Neither extended partitions (containers) nor logical partitions can be booted (very strictly).
A Microsoft MBR boots the partition that's active. That's its typical (any its only) behaviour. Make the Widows partition active => Windows will boot. Make /boot active and Lilo/Grub will boot. Re-install Linux => Windows will stay alive. Reinstall Windows => Linux will stay alive.
Instead of having a normal MBR (created by /sbin/lilo -M or just installed by MS Windows) some people choose to install their first stage bootloader into the first 512 bytes of a disk. When dualbooting, sooner or later these kinds of silly setups will turn out to be a bad choice. When Lilo or grub loses (in any possible way) acces to the other stage images, your setup will be broken. Chainloading NTLDR is very possible to fail if a non-Microsoft MBR is installed. NON-regular MBR users screwing-up a Linux installation (/boot) will screw up the whole system, while Microsoft MBR users just can activate an other partition to make Windows just bootable and happy again.
| Quote: | Even with the first two disks, since I could not trick xp out of the first partition, I thought there was no reason
that xp and gentoo could not share a fat partition (I'll get back to them mon probably to see what happens). |
Fat is a very evil filesystem. It can be slow and will limit file sizes. Give Windows NTFS wich really is superior above fat in every single way (except write support in Linux).
You really don't want bootloader stage images in c:\. Imagine you are defragging c:\ => sooner or later that will break Lilo.
| Quote: | | overwriting xp's 512 bytes and [.....] |
My argument: people should _not_ do that.
Grub is too big to fit in 512 bytes. It will always need some space elsewhere (/boot). This can in fact be anywhere on the disk, but only few choices can be considered as well chosen.
There exist 512 bytes bootloaders (like the FreeBSD bootloader), but in case of Linux or Windows it always needs a cainloader returning into the need of Lilo and GRub to load Linux.
| Quote: | So I guess my argument would be if you lose the first 512 you will never boot off of the array again no matter where you originally put grub.
Like the raid 0 , argument that you double your chance of data loss , I would say booting from anywhere but the MBR doubles your chance of losing
your boot. (I know thats what backups are for) |
Ignoring your first remark, think about it again please. 
| Erlend wrote: | | Grub doesn't overwrite the MBR. It just appends something to the end of it to redirect the booting to your /boot partition where grub is installed. |
"Redirecting" is perfectly implemented by the Microsoft MBR. It will load the active partition. Grub's first mini-stage in the MBR behaves differently, but I agree for many people this is the "easiest" way to make sure at least Grub works. Dualbooters will have different experiences in the end
| Code: | | /sbin/lilo -M /dev/mapper/disk |
will install a MBR having the same behaviour as Microsoft MBR! Another way is MSDOS fdisk /mbr (will only work when 1 harddisk is attached) or reinstalling Windows.
You can make either partition 1-4 active with /sbin/fdisk on the Gen2dmraid cdrom. Make sure only one partition is active at a time.
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irondog
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Location: Voor mijn TV. Achter mijn pc.
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| Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 11:28 pm Post subject: |
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Genkernel now supports dmraid
First traces of official support in Gentoo are there. Genkernel-3.1.0j includes dmraid.
After placing the device-mapper and dmraid source tarballs into the right directory, you can use
| Code: | genkernel --udev --gensplash --dmraid all
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To create the kernel / initrd.
Sata users should append this to modules_load: | Code: | | MODULES_SATA="sata_promise sata_sil sata_svw sata_via sata_nv sata_sx4 sata_sis sata_uli sata_vitesse sata_ahci" |
and specify dosata and udev on the kernel commandline.
Thanks to Rocket for the patch.
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flipy
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Posts: 232
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| Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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Irondog, can you specify if dmraid supports for 128 chunk size in RAID0?
And if so, does it support the VIA chipset?
Is there any chance to make it work with dmsetup? and about multipath-tools?
Thank you so so much!  |
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GibKingXXL
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Joined: 18 Jan 2004
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 11:39 pm Post subject: |
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I have boot problem here...
| Code: |
...
>> Mounting filesystems...
>> Preparing environment for dmraid...
>> Creating /dev/mapper/control character device with major:10 minor:62...
>> Calling dmraid...
ERROR: dos: seeking device "/dev/mapper/isw_xxxx_RAID_Volume1" to 1253632200704
ERROR: adding to RAID set
>> dmraid was run successfully
>> Determining root device...
>> Mounting root...
mount: Mounting /dev/mapper/isw_xxx_RAID_Volume12 on /newroot failed: Invalid argument
>> Could not mount specified ROOT, try again
>> The root block device is unspecified or not detected
>> Specify real_root=<root_blockdevice> on the kernel cmdline
Please specify a device to boot, or "shell" for a shell...
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If i start a shell and do
it gives me
| Code: |
control
isw_xxx_RAID_Volume1
isw_xxx_RAID_Volume11
isw_xxx_RAID_Volume12
isw_xxx_RAID_Volume13
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My grub.conf
| Code: |
timeout 10
default 0
title=Gentoo
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 real_root=/dev/mapper/isw_xxx_RAID_Volume12 init=/linuxrc
initrd /initrd
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I'd be thankful if anybody could tell me what I did wrong.
I think i followed this tutorial (built kernel with needed support, made initrd, used udev). |
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desertstalker
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Joined: 18 Sep 2004
Posts: 209
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| Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2005 7:31 am Post subject: |
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I have a strange problem. I have 3 HDDs 2 SATA in RAID 0 on an intel ICH5R controller and another on the normal PATA controller. When i installed windows it put its boot files (boot.ini ntldr etc) on the first partition of the PATA drive.
Can I use this howto? Will I need to reistall windows XP and can it be made to put all its files in the first partition of the RAID array?
Or, is there something I'm missing out on entirely?
Thanks.
PS: Would it hurt to have the linux partitions fisrt on the array (ie. 1-3) and then have the WinXP partitions in a logical drive on the rest of the array?
I'm not that new to linux, but have never needed to get this technical before. Damn intel, why cant they make a decent RAID device. |
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Erlend
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Posts: 493
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| Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2005 10:39 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Can I use this howto? |
Probably. Linux will only see the SATA ports on your controller though. And you may have to disable the PATA port in the BIOS. http://www.linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html#intel-ich5
| Quote: | | Will I need to reistall windows XP and can it be made to put all its files in the first partition of the RAID array? |
If you don't need your windows filesystem to be accessible from linux then you can leave it where it is (on the PATA drive). If you do this (Linux on SATA, Windows on PATA) you shouldn't really use this howto (it will work) because you can then use md linux software raid. Or do you mean you installed Windows on the SATA raid drives but its boot.ini ntldr files got put on the PATA drive?
You should read this, http://www.linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html#fakeraid.
Erlend |
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desertstalker
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| Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:10 am Post subject: |
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Never mind. I managed to kill windows anyway. So... now i have a nice clean setup with ALL the winXP files in the WinXP dir.
Now... to wait for irondog's site to come back on-line so i can get the initrd. Can anyone host this for me?
Thanks, for one a windows stuffup was a good thing  |
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irondog
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Location: Voor mijn TV. Achter mijn pc.
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| Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:24 am Post subject: |
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News:
* For creating a initrd with dmraid, you can use genkernel now.
* Viaraid is supported with the newest dmraid
* Site is still down, if it's up again my newly creaded LiveCD can be downloaded. It includes grub (also at startup), genkernel, dmraid-1.0.0.rc6 and the newest baselayout, kernel 2.6.11-(mm1) and some minor configuration fixes.
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desertstalker
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| Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:03 am Post subject: |
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I have a problem. I cannot get grub to load. I followed the instructions in this howto and all i get upon a reboot is
| Code: | | error loading operating system |
I have tryed using both hd0 and hd1 for grub, that had no effect.
The system is on a P4P800 Deluxe and I am using the ICH5R controller (SATA).
Can anyone shed some light on this problem?
Thanks.
EDIT: The windows loader is what is giving the error. it seems it cannot load the grub image. It is on the first partition (ext3) and has been, AFIK set up correctly. The partiton is active (set through fdisk).
Thanks
EDIT2: OK I got it to boot but there grub does not come up with any menu. I have to guess the entry and press enter beforre the timer elapses without any menus. Whats up with that? Is it because grub cant find the boot partition?.
On second thoughts Id better check the config. |
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irondog
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Posts: 715
Location: Voor mijn TV. Achter mijn pc.
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| Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005 9:17 am Post subject: |
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| desertstalker wrote: |
EDIT2: OK I got it to boot but there grub does not come up with any menu. I have to guess the entry and press enter beforre the timer elapses without any menus. Whats up with that? Is it because grub cant find the boot partition?. |
No, grub seems to work but unable to find menu.lst (the configuration file).
Menu.lst should contain enties that describe grub commands you can also type by hand (making grub a very advanced bootloader). You are now able to say something like this to load linux:
| Code: | root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinz root=/dev/ram0
initrd /initrd
boot
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For Windows you can use the rootnoverify and chainloader commands. Once booted Linux by hand you'll be able to place menu.lst in the right place.
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kabage
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:07 am Post subject: Re Iron Dogs arguments to my last post- on dual booting XP |
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| Quote: | A Microsoft MBR boots the partition that's active. That's its typical (any its only) behaviour. Make the Widows partition active => Windows will boot. Make /boot active and Lilo/Grub will boot. Re-install Linux => Windows will stay alive. Reinstall Windows => Linux will stay alive.
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Your right I dont understand your version of the boot sequence.
If MS holds the MBR and only boots the the active partition - How would grub every come up?
| Quote: |
When Lilo or grub loses (in any possible way) acces to the other stage images, your setup will be broken. |
Maybe you havn't noticed that WinXp is a two stage loader also so how is this any more or less silly than using lilo or grub on the drives MBR as opposed to the partitions MBR. From my understanding of the boot sequence no two stage loader will work if it cant find the second stage
| Quote: | | It's very well possible to have MS Windows installed on the partition 1-4 and having /boot on one of the other four partitions. Problem is, you don't understand you should not touch the MBR written by MS Windows Setup (lets call it a microsoft MBR). So I assume you don't understand the PC bootsequence. |
I never said it wasn't, I say its impossible to put a linux partition on partition 1, because XP, will put boot.ini and a couple other config files there by any normal install, unless you know a hack, or maybe I have one of the Chinese versions of XP.
| Quote: | Make the Widows partition active => Windows will boot. Make /boot active and Lilo/Grub will boot. Re-install Linux => Windows will stay alive. Reinstall Windows => Linux will stay alive.
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You got me on this one? It sounds (ok reads) like your saying to dual boot properly we should go in to fdisk and make the proper partition active according to the system we want to boot.
(I know there is no fdisk on Xp what is it diskpart I believe)
| Quote: | | while Microsoft MBR users just can activate an other partition to make Windows just bootable and happy again. |
I would totally disagree If msMBR users screw the partition with boot.ini on it, I dont see how just making say a ms second or third partition or whatever active will make it boot.
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Erlend
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:13 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | If MS holds the MBR and only boots the the active partition - How would grub every come up? |
Because you set the active partition to be grub! If grub then wants wants to boot windows it uses "makeactive" (to make the windows partition active), and then chainloads the windows bootloader. Basically, you are inserting a bootloader before the windows one, which can either call the windows one, or just boot linux. You don't really need to understand this to use it - it works.
Erlend |
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irondog
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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| kabage wrote: | Your right I dont understand your version of the boot sequence.
If MS holds the MBR and only boots the the active partition - How would grub every come up? |
Grub is loaded because it is installed on the partition that's active. Like Erlend explains.
| Quote: | | Maybe you havn't noticed that WinXp is a two stage loader also so how is this any more or less silly than using lilo or grub on the drives MBR as opposed to the partitions MBR. From my understanding of the boot sequence no two stage loader will work if it cant find the second stage. |
Windows XP installs a Master bootrecord and a bootloader in the partition you are installing it at. It makes that patition active. Very good, clean and safe way to make sure it boots AND to make sure you don't break other OS-es.
Much linux distributions install their 1stage bootloader direct into the MBR to make sure Linux boots. For dualbooting it's not a very kind thing to do.
| Quote: | | I never said it wasn't, I say its impossible to put a linux partition on partition 1, because XP, will put boot.ini and a couple other config files there by any normal install, unless you know a hack, or maybe I have one of the Chinese versions of XP. |
Don't hack your windows version, try to uderstand it. Do partitioning once and formatting as often as you want: That's the most safe way not to break an OS while installing the other.
| Quote: | You got me on this one? It sounds (ok reads) like your saying to dual boot properly we should go in to fdisk and make the proper partition active according to the system we want to boot.
(I know there is no fdisk on Xp what is it diskpart I believe) |
YES Yes. With a Gentoo LiveCD you can fix any bootproblem. After re-installing Windows you can even re-activate grub without touching any LiveCD.
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Because you set the active partition to be grub! If grub then wants wants to boot windows it uses "makeactive" (to make the windows partition active), and then chainloads the windows bootloader. |
makeactive is rarely needed. I think it's something to make MSDOS or win98 happy.
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kabage
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:43 pm Post subject: Which leads to the problem (Wait wait irondog responding |
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| Quote: | Prerequisites
* Partitioning is already done
* You have Windows installed on the second partition o/t raid |
| Quote: | | You just have to make the first partition active and the Microsoft MBR will load GRUB. |
WinXp will always put the second stage (boot.ini) on the first partition, so to put the /boot partition on the first partition is impossible. Which was always really the point for me.
No one really addresses how this is possible, or why it so silly to use grub or lilo in the MBR as opposed to wins boot loader.
I see no reason to bother learning the nuances of two boot loaders as opposed to one.
A corrupted MBR is not going to work no matter what boot loader is occupying that space.
Third that does explain how you could then boot win if the /boot first 512 get corrupted, but it seems backwards to think it would happen to lin first not win (its the unstable one, with all the attacks on it )
Why do a 3 stage process, slower and more chances for a problem going from wins loader, grub or lilo, then the (2nd or should this really be called the 3rd stage in this situation) of your o/s?
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irondog
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:06 pm Post subject: Re: Which leads to the problem (Wait wait irondog responding |
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| Quote: | | WinXp will always put the second stage (boot.ini) on the first partition, so to put the /boot partition on the first partition is impossible. Which was always really the point for me. |
Bullshit! I'ld like to post my $(df -h) here. First I had windows, then I installed Gentoo, I reinstalled Windows, then I Installed Gentoo. I did this for friends who had problems with setting up their dualboot, fixed it in oneshot. Know Windows/NT for as long as it exists. No-nosense.
Besides you should stop talking about boot.ini as a bootloader. This thing is called "NTLDR" and should not be seen as a second stage loader, but just a very stupid, lame but also a small bootloader wich even can be used to load a unix bootloader.
| Quote: | | No one really addresses how this is possible, or why it so silly to use grub or lilo in the MBR as opposed to wins boot loader. |
Because the MBR is not the right place for a bootloader that uses STAGES!
| Quote: | | I see no reason to bother learning the nuances of two boot loaders as opposed to one. |
You shouldn't.
| Quote: | | A corrupted MBR is not going to work no matter what boot loader is occupying that space. |
Duh. MBR's are much too small for advanced bootloaders so they need their space on something that's usually a filesystem.
When you want to reserve your first partition for /boot and after that want to install windows on the second, it can be very important that you mark the first partition as non-FAT/NTFS. Otherwise windows will place it's bootstap loader onto this partition. You format the first partition and windows will break.
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