How to configure dual-boot for Windows 200 Pro/Mandriva Linux 2007? (Two hard drives)?
Here’s the situation… I’ve got two seperate drives, both with a full-blown operating system installed, both fully functional when plugged into the the appropriate IDE cable as "Drive C" or "hda" respectively.
Mandriva is using LILO… in the master boot record of it’s drive.
Adding Windows to the bootup options menu and pointing it to the Windows drive installed on a separate IDE cable, as hdc… does NOT work.
How to proceed at this point without completely destroying either installation. If I have to wipe and reinstall Windows, that’s acceptable. But re-installing Mandriva at this point is NOT an option… just way to much data and add-in software at this point… it would take me DAYS to recover.
I notice in the Mandriva Linux Control Center that you can specifiy a different "Boot Device". What would happen if I changed that to "/dev/hdc", let it save it’s data, then shut down and switch the drives around?
News… one round-about approach that works, though it’s not that convenient…
Currently the Mandriva drive is on the mainboard’s primary IDE cable… the Windows drive is on the secondary cable.
If I go into the BIOS and disable the primary IDE, Windows will boot and function normally. And I get the added benefit of knowing that Windows will in no way be able to mess with the MBR (Master Boot Record) on the Linux drive. Which is the whole reason I wanted Windows on it’s own drive to begin with, instead of just a partition.
It’s not the most convienient solution… ideally I’d still like a boot-up menu for Mandriva/Windows using LILO or Grub. But until then, at least tweaking the BIOS is better than having to go into the box and switch the cables around. {grin}
Tagged with: benefit • bios • boot device • cables • convienient solution • drive c • grub • hda • hdc • Linux • linux drive • mainboard • mandriva linux • master boot record • operating system • options menu • partition • secondary cable • seperate • tweaking
Filed under: Mandrake
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I’ve heard that Windows refused to boot when not on the first partition of the first hard-drive.
This would explain why booting win from /dev/hdc doesn’t work.
By the way, since 2007 Spring, Grub is the default bootloader.
My answer would be to :
- put the Linux on /dev/hdc, correcting the /etc/fstab and grub config
- put the win drive on /dev/hda
- using a CD with grub to boot the linux from /dev/hdc
- installing grub on /DEV/HDA to be able to boot the linux when booting on the windows disk
You can let the grub on /dev/hdc if you want to be able to boot when the windows hd is not present.