The most common n00b question - Dual booting?

[Armageddon00 0]

Ok i hate to sound really stupid and naive but i need to know how to Dual Boot with the Windows XP OS and Fedora (i dunno the # but its about 1 year old, i dont mind re dling it).

 

I have 2 drives set up as follows

 

Drive 1 (80 GB total NTFS)

 

..Partition 1 (30 MB, I assume this is my boot part.)

..Partition 2 (64 GB, Windows XP is located here)

..Empty Space (~16 GB, This is where i want Fedora)

 

Drive @ (8 GB total RAW (no file system))

 

..Partition 1 (8 GB, not formated or anything)

..Empty Space (8 MB, im not sure why but WinXP wouldnt let me make the harddrive all one part.)

 

I think NTFS is non-compatible or something but I dont mind reinstalling windows because this computer does not have anything important on it (i actualy just reinstalled it last week, like 30 video games and im to lazy to go through and clean up all the garbage)

 

If anymore info is needed just ask, i really want to get into linux because im taking High School courses that lead to a carrer in Computer Science, and because I want to try something new.

[Niwrad 0]

Check out this site for a thorough guide: http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/dual_boot_fedora_xp.php

[Niwrad 0]

However, relating to this thread, I set up Windows on one hard drive and Fedora Core 4 on another. When I set up XP I made its hard drive master, and then when I set-up Fedora I made its respective hard drive master (with the other set as slave in both instances).

 

The problem now is that I need to change the hard drive hierarchies to load the respective OS's (big pain in the butt). How does one consolidate?

[danleff 0]

There is no need to change the hard drive hierarchies when installing Linux. The only real rule of thumb, is that Windows likes to be on the primary master drive. If you swap the drives, then you need to tell grub what you did, as it will look for Fedora, or whatever, on the partition, at the location that you originally installed it on. If you swap the drives, Windows and Linux can not be found, as grub is configured to look at the location you originally installed to.

 

So, if you installed Linux on the first partiton of the primary master (hda1),then switch the designations, the Linux bootloader is still looking for itself on the primary master (hda1) not where it now is, the primary slave (hdb1).

 

Before installing Fedora or any other Linux distro, is to defrag the Window's partition before installing any flavor of Linux on the same Hard drive.

 

Armageddon00, it sounds like the former may be at issue for you (the need to defrag the windows partition). Can you be more specific what problem that you are having? Fedora should/can be installed on the free space that you have on drive 1, if you tell it to install there. Just tell the installer partitoning tool to put Fedora there. It will ask you if you want to put Fedora on free space, or take over free space on the NTFS partiton.

 

BTW, is this a Dell or Gateway system?

 

What tool did you use to format or set up your drive partitions?

[Armageddon00 0]

My system is a dell but as far as its guts go its been upgrading in everyway except the Proccessor & Graphix card. I think its was the Dimension 8something, its a bit old but it does the job.

 

As far as my 'problem' im not having one its just that the first time i installed fedora on a harddrive other than the primary it didnt work so i want to make sure i do everything perfectly as to not provide extra hassle formyself.

 

I used the windows instal disk to set the partitions. (i reinstalled because dell threw on some shit stuff and office, i hate office. And dell screwed up my screen config its able to display 1600x1200 but dell set its max at 1280x1024)

 

oh and BTW what desktop do you guys suggest? Ive used the one that comes with Knoppix but i dunno about Genome. Any suggestions either way.

[Edited by Armageddon00 on 2005-07-13 09:53:17]

 

[Niwrad 0]

Alright, I'm able to toggle between the two HDs in my bios and switch them off to get the OS working that I want. Howerver, what I really want is an OS selection menu to boot up when the computer is turned on. How can I set this up?

[Armageddon00 0]

Im gonna try it now wish my lots of luck

[danleff 0]

Toggling back and forth between the drives in the bios is not the best answer. The usual senario is this;

 

1. have XP on the primary master. It always installs on the first primary partition.

 

2. Install Linux on whatever partition that you want (or free space on the drive, if it is large enough). The drive that you are using to install Linux has to have at least one partition on it. Linux can not see a "raw" drive that has no partition structure to it.

 

However in both your cases, you need to know what the Linux partition that grub is using right now, in order to change grub to find where Linux is, relative to what are your master and slave drives. If you installed Linux on the master drive, then you point grub to that partition. If you installed it on a slave or secondary drive, then point grub there.

 

Depending what distro you both are using, grub has either a grub.conf or menu.lst file that holds this information. The menu.lst file is usually located in the /boot/grub directory of the partition that Linux is installed on.

 

If either of you can post your menu.lst file, then we can look at it and tell you how to change it to boot both XP and Linux.

 

To recap, have the drive with XP on it as your master drive.

 

Post your menu.lst file and let us know if it is currently on the master drive, or slave drive.

[tyga 0]

I'm not really sure why but I frequently see people advise that Windows must be on the primary master HDD.

 

Although I agree that on a single HDD it is best to have Windows on the 1st partition and Linux after Windows, it is my opinion that in a Multi HDD setup it is best to have Linux on the Primary Master HDD and Windows on a Secodary or slave drive.

 

My reason is this.

 

If you install Windows first on a HDD, then place that HDD as a slave drive, then install linux on the primary master drive, the linux boot loader will recognize the Windows drive and install it in the boot loader, Lilo for example. This leaves the Windows boot loader untouched on the slave HDD making it easily and usefully possible for an easy windows boot via a simple bios boot sequence swap, in the event that your Linux install is hosed, which often does happen.

 

However, if you install windows as the master HDD and then install linux as the slave, the boot loader will over write the windows boot loader. I know it is a fairly simple task to repair the MFT but I think it is much easier just to put windows on the slave HDD.

 

I have done this with all my Linux windows dual boot setups without any issues.

[danleff 0]

Quote:

I'm not really sure why but I frequently see people advise that Windows must be on the primary master HDD.

Actually, this is not what I said...and yes, you are correct.
But, in both these cases the usual scenario holds true. Both Armageddon00 and Niwrad had XP on the primary master. One of the systems is also a Dell which can potentually raise some other issues with the hidden recovery/bios partition on some Dell systems.

Niwrad switched out his drives for his Linux install and is having trouble dual-booting.

It's great that you were able to set up your drives this way, for a specific reason. But each of these users need to know how to fix what they have now. Once they are up and running, we can give them more possibilities.

tyga, perhaps you can stick around this thread and assist?

[tyga 0]

Sorry danleff,

 

I was just generalising rather than actually refering to what you said or even to this particular thread. I'll try to be more specific next time.

 

I would be glad to help in anyway that I can.