Hi,

Sorry to post yet another dual boot question, but I'm a newbie and am really stuck here. I've searched the threads and my question has been addressed, but it doesn't look like it was solved (or maybe it was, but I'm too dense to figure it out). Anyway, the problem is that when I select a separate OS to boot using LILO, the system hangs. Here's the specifics:

I have a system (Athlon 850, 256 megs RAM) that had a Maxtor HD with Win98 installed on the secondary IDE master. I wanted to dual boot and had a spare HD lying around, so instead of dealing with partitioning my existing drive, I just added this new HD (Western Digital) and set about installing Red Hat 7.0 on it (had that lying around too). To be safe, I disconnected the Maxtor HD during installation, set the new HD to master and started installing.

Everything went fine and I was able to get Red Hat up and running. So, I reconnected the Maxtor HD (with Win98) and set it to be the slave on the secondary IDE. Then I edited lilo.conf to this:

- lilo.conf -------
boot=/dev/hdc
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=50
message=/boot/message
linear
default=linux

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.16-22
label=linux
read-only
root=/dev/hdc5

other=/dev/hdd1
label=win98
table=/dev/hdd
- end -------

I then executed LILO as root and it gave me this:
Added linux*
Added win98

It didn't give me any errors, so I figured it's fine. I then added this line to fstab:

- fstab ------
/dev/hdd1    /win    vfat    umask=002,noexec    0     0
- end ------

After a "mkdir win" I was able to access the contents of the Windows drive from within Linux, and was feeling pretty good about myself

Then, I tried rebooting and starting up win98 from LILO. LILO loads up and gives me a choice between linux and win98. If I choose linux, Red Hat boots without a problem. But if I choose win98, the system reads: "Loading win98" and then just hangs. However, if I open up my box and reset the Maxtor HD to master, Windows boots just fine.

One other thing that's strange and very possibly related is that when Red Hat boots, it gets to the "detecting new hardware" phase and something called Kudzu detects the Maxtor drive as a new piece of hardware. I don't know why this is happening, because the Maxtor mounts properly. Why would it detect it as new if it's mounted? Also, this Kudzu thing gives me the choice of Initializing the Maxtor drive, but I'm hesitant to do so because I don't know what "initializing" it entails. It just seems strange to me that I can access the contents of the Windows drive from within Linux, but during the boot, Linux says the Windows drive is new.

I'm at a loss as to what to do next... again, I'm a total newbie, so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know. I'm anxious to make the switch off Windows, but having to open my box and reset jumper settings on my HD is sort of a pain.

Thanks!

That might be a problem, but I am not sure, I've never been a windows poweruser in my life, but I heard that M$ requires their OS's reside on master drives (prefferably primary master). Somebody correct me if I am wrong.

Winblows requires that it reside on the primary hd.........................probably something to do with Bill's ego.

This may or may not work. To the ' other= ' section add these lines:

other=/dev/hdd1
label=win98
table=/dev/hdd
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80

The numbers might have to be changed. I see you have linux on hdc and win98 on hdd. What do you have on hda and hdb?

<Edit> Changed map_drive to map-drive.

Thank you all for your help. I've taken your suggestions and moved my drives around like so:

hda: linux drive
hdb: cdrom
hdc: windows drive
hdd: nothing

Before installing the linux drive, I had the cdrom on hda and windows on hdc and it worked fine. Despite rearranging the drives though, I'm still getting the same problem. I can get into linux fine, but selecting windows from LILO hangs the system. And again, if I unplug the Linux drive, leaving me with just the cd-rom and windows on hdc, windows boots fine.

What's confusing is that Windows boots off the secondary master without LILO, but doesn't with LILO. And if I were to move Windows to the Primary Master, wouldn't it take over during startup and LILO would never execute? I'd really like to avoid the hassle of partitioning the drive, so I'm hoping to get this working.

linuxcool - I don't think your suggestion worked. I tried adding the options you suggested to my lilo.conf and I ended up getting a Syntax Error when I executed LILO. I double-checked to make sure I didn't mistype, but to no avail.

I'm looking through my copy of Running Linux (O'Reilly) and came across this bit in the appendix on LILO boot options:
Could this be part of the problem?

Thanks again for your help.

Hi again.

Just as a followup, I've gotten it working, but should share a few things. First, Windows 98 (can't speak for other versions) can boot off a slave (right now it's a secondary slave and working fine).

Also, linuxcool - i think you mistyped with:
map_drive = 0x80
to = 0x81

I looked around and found it written:
map-drive = 0x80
to = 0x81

I gave that a shot, and that's all it was (that'll explain the syntax error too). So, thanks for the point in the right direction.

Best.

Sorry about the mistake in syntax, dsknkt. I was doing it from memory. Should have looked it up to make sure. Glad that you got it working.

No sweat - All's well that end's well, right?

Thanks again!

Right. You're welcome.

Thanks for that. I was having lots of trouble with a similar situation. drive hda with M$-Dos 6.22 (don't ask), hdb with CD-Rom, hdc with linux, hdd with win98.

Before this I did not use win98 so I merely loaded that on hda and installed lilo in mbr telling it win98 was on hda and this worked fine with no funny configurations.

My config now looks like:

----- BEGIN -----
boot=/dev/hda
prompt
lba32
compact
root=/dev/hdc1

image=/vmlinuz
label=Linux
read-only

other=/dev/hda1
label=Dos

other=/dev/hdd1
label=Win98
table=/dev/hdd
map-drive=0x80
to=0x82
map-drive=0x82
to=0x80
----- END -----

I should probably mention my partitions as well:
hda1 (fat12 10MB for dos)
hda2 -> 5 (fat16 extended with remainder of 512MB disk)
hdb (cdrom)
hdc1 (ext2 for linux about 1GB)
hdc2 -> 5 (linux swap 64MB)
hdd1 -> (fat32 2GB for win98)

The problem now comes in that my drives looks as follows in win98:

c -> /dev/hdd1
d -> /dev/hda1
e -> ???
f -> /dev/hda5
g -> /dev/hdb

As you should guess the problem lies with drive e which I don't know where it maps to. win98 also tries to run a scandisk on it every time and gets stuck at 85 % and then just stops.

Any help is welcome.