Two Hard Drive Dual Boot with XP and RedHat Linux 9

[zpac2388 0]

I have two hard drives in my computer. The 40GB Western Digital has Windows XP on it and it is currently set to be the Slave. The 20GB Western Digital has RedHat Linux installed on it with GRUB on the Master Boot Record (MBR) and that hard drive has the jumper set as the Master. When starting up it comes up with the GRUB prompt to choose either "Red Hat Linux" or "Microsoft Windows XP". If Linux is chosen, everything works fine. If Microsoft Windows XP is chosen, it echos the code in the /boot/grub/grub.conf file (under the Microsoft Windows XP section) and just hangs at that black screen. My grub.conf file is as below...

 

default=1

timeout=10

splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8 )

[TAB] root (hd0,0)

[TAB] kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi

[TAB] initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

title Microsoft Windows XP

[TAB] rootnoverify (hd1,0)

[TAB] chainloader +1

 

I am minimally experienced with Linux and am trying to learn. Any help that you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

[joshua 0]

I had the exact same problem in the same setup. The problem is that Windows XP doesn't like to load from a secondary HDD. It likes to be(or at least think that it is) on the primary drive. Here is the fix that worked for me:

 

Code:

title Windows XP     map (hd1) (hd0)     rootnoverify (hd0,0)     makeactive     boot

 

The map command makes your computer think that the Windows drive is really the primary one, rootnoverify has been changed to reflect this. Then there's the "makeactive" and "boot" tags. I'm not sure if they're necessary, but with this configuration they worked. And I wasn't in the mood to go through the whole process of deleting them, rebooting and seeing if it would load without them. So I left them. There might be a "chainloader +1" tag in there as well, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

 

Hope this helps

[Carson 0]

I'm brand new to Linux too, dealing with same thing. I use Windows XP Pro on my slave IDE HD; ME on my primary. I used to have 2 XPs, one on slave, one on master; plus the ME. For Windows, you can change IDE pref at the BIOS in 5 or 10 seconds on boot-up, choosing either IDE Drive (0) or (1), which remains default forever until you change it again. An even sweeter method is using US-BOOT's free boot manager with its slick menu; you power up with a floppy and make your choice between IDE drives in 1-2 seconds.

 

--Linux seems less agreeable, but that must be because I'm brand new. I'm changing to Linux because I've heard it does everything better. So far, it's balked at my wanting more than one partition to be bootable. Actually all 6 of my partitions on my 2 IDE HDDs are primary bootable. On Linux Morphix I had to choose between XP and Linux; I suppose because they're so different. (That was no problem between XP and ME, which are also different O/Ss on different kernals.) Anyway, I did create a Linux partition yesterday, but then the Morphix installer died, so I'm working on that today. I notice that XP Pro agreeably recognizes the Linux partition in terms of its existence, size, and Linux identity.

 

--That's not much help to you, but maybe it gives you some background, plus encouragement in knowing you're not alone! Best of luck. :-)

[iceolate3k 0]

I have the same problem as well. I have two 40G Maxtor drives and when I set them up on the primary IDE, I only get to select Red Hat. I get nothing before that, it boots right into the Red Hat selection. I have tried it with RH9 master/XP slave, and vice versa, but still the same thing. Is it something I need to setup in Red Hat, or perhaps a setting in BIOS? I tried to mount the XP drive to copy some files, but I couldn't get it to mount. Maybe I don't

know how to mount it. I can get CD-ROM and Zip to mount...

 

thanks for the help..

[Carson 0]

Guys, if you're still looking at this thread, I've made a bit of progress. There's a nifty thing called Boot-US, which is a German boot manager available as a free download. I've got it and it looks like it's what I'm going to use.

 

It's designed for multi Windows-anything + Linux, plus lots of others too. There's a detailed manual on PDF. My intention now is to use the Windows boot manager with this Boot-US, and not use the Linux boots. (I'm told that if you do use Linux, GRUB is gaining popularity over Lilo.)

 

The advantage with Boot-US is that you can set it up on a floppy disk so that NOTHING IS WRITTEN to your hard drive Windows boot files. Later when you're sure, if you want, you can install it to the HD.

 

I'm still brand new at this, but that's the direction I'm going in. Good luck!