Andymcr Posted March 12, 2005 Share Posted March 12, 2005 Hi,Searched all over, nothing. I'm wanting to switch my main PC to XP/ Slackware. I have a 160gb sata drive 50/50 partitioned XP OS/ XP other. I also have a 40gb ide drive that I would like to put Slack on. Any ideas about which order to do it, where the MBR is, do I use LILO?Thanks in advance.Also, on my other PC (the one I trialed Slack on, and realised it was the way forward!) I tried a 'konstruct' update to 3.4RC1 - after about 6hrs of scrolling i gave up, was it my slow (celeron 800) pc or a bad command? I'd ideally like Slack 10.1 & kde 3.4 on a first install, maybe I'll have to wait,And don't get me started on Baghira - anyone know any decent tgz sites?Oh, and theres Amarok, I installed, then it asked for GStreamer etc.I'm going mad here, but I'm loving the experience - and keeping notes,Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted March 12, 2005 Share Posted March 12, 2005 Hi AndyKDE 3.4 is far from stable now . . . . ( only PCLos has a reasonable version in a beta ) . . . so forget about Slack and KDE 3.4 fro now !Putting Slack on a separate drive is a good idea . . . you can either make a boot-floppy and use that for booting if you do not want to overwrite the MBR on your first HD ( hda ) . . . but if you want to use Lilo to multiboot it has to be installed on hda ( and later adapted to include Windows ) Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andymcr Posted March 15, 2005 Author Share Posted March 15, 2005 Hi,Well I went ahead, and now have both OSs on my system, but no oportunity to choose a boot option.The only way of choosing is to alter boot selection in bios:I have SATA drive xp - if i choose in BIOS "scsi 1st boot" it boots up xp, once in I can see the linux drive in comp management (disk 1)I have IDE drive Linux - iif i choose in BIOS "ide 1st boot" it boots up Linux, once in I cant see the sata drive - hda is my cdrom, hdc is the ide drive with linux on.When I installed Linux i asked it to install LILO in MBR , i guess its now on the mbr on the ide drive?Any ideas would be greatly appreciated - I don't mind using NTLDR or LILO, I'd just prefer not to have to change bios every time I want to switch!Thanks,Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted March 15, 2005 Share Posted March 15, 2005 HI AndyWhen you boot into Linux . . . from the IDE drive I suppose you get a small boot-menu where you press "enter" for Linux . . . . ( right ? ) . . . that is the Linux bootloader. Depending on the Distro ( Is it Slackware you installed ? ) it is either Lilo or Grub . . but we both can adapt them to include Windows XP . . . What I would like to know is: how does linux call your sata drive ( the one with XP )Please give this commands i a terminal and show me what it says: su< password > fdisk -l Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andymcr Posted March 15, 2005 Author Share Posted March 15, 2005 Hi Bruno,Thanks for the swift reply. I tried a fdisk -l and it only showed hdc (my ide linux drive with 3 partitions on it). I had a quick look at fdisk help and tried fdisk /dev/sda to see if it was seeing my sata drive but nothing.Is there a command (like disk management in XP) that will show all devices, mounted and unmounted?Thanks again,Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted March 15, 2005 Share Posted March 15, 2005 Well yes the "fdisk -l" should show all the HDs if they are mounted or not . . . :(What was that distro ? . . . And maybe show me the"/etc/fstab" . . . cat /etc/fstab Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andymcr Posted March 15, 2005 Author Share Posted March 15, 2005 I'm on Slackware 10.1, basic 2.4 kernel. I did an fstab and it showed the same again, ide and cdrom - no sata. I'm beginning to think that the BIOS takes me to the ide boot before it has loaded the sata drivers for the other drive. In which case, I think I'll have to boot scsi, and use NTLDR to give the option to boot from ide.I'll have a play around, thanks for your help,Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted March 15, 2005 Share Posted March 15, 2005 Hi AndySee because Salckware installed its lilo on the IDE and not the SATA means it did not see the SATA at all . . . . and that could be correct because the 2.4 kernel has very poor SATA support ( or none at all )Normally your SATA would be on hde ( that is what all the others report from other distros using the 2.6 kernel ) . . . so basically your entry for Windows in /etc/lilo.conf should be other=/dev/hde1 Â Â Â Â label="windows" Â Â Â Â table=/dev/hde But I fear that when you want to write that lilo to the MBR ( with the /sbin/lilo command ) it will tell you that there is no hde . . . . . ( you can give it a try though )From what I know, Slack has SATA support now, but you will have to use the 2.6 kernel . . . and that will maybe/probably have some implications on your sound-system . . . because that is the trouble I hear from some people testing the 2.6 on Slack . . . othes have propblems with their 7-button mouse ( not the 3 button ones ) . . . See . . . a kind of catch 22 . . . but you could try the 2.6 just to see if you have the SATA support . . . Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andymcr Posted March 15, 2005 Author Share Posted March 15, 2005 (edited) Cheers Bruno,I found a quick workaround at http://www.tprthai.net/bootmgr.htm using boot.lnx on my scsi drive - I reinstalled Slack and got lilo onto the superblock on the ide,Now when i boot, I get the Windows boot options - the linux one takes me to lilo! Downside is, still can't see any windows drives from Slackware - but as you say this might be a kernel issue.EDIT: I guess I could put a FAT32 partition on the ide - hopefully that would allow sharing.Thanks for your input,Andy Edited March 15, 2005 by Andymcr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted March 15, 2005 Share Posted March 15, 2005 Hi AndyGlad you found a solution !! . . . . :DAbout the FAT partition on the IDE . . . . .That would indeed be an idea :thumbsup: Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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