busybee

I have installed Redhat 7.1 and winxp on my sonyfx370 laptop. presently, i want it to boot default in winDOZZE. I have tried modifying the lilo.conf and set the default boot to dos. But that doesnt seem to matter while booting and the default is still linux.

can someone help me wat to change !! ??

thanks

deeps

What boot loader are you using?

I think Im using Lilo. I havent set any options explicitly while installing Redhat. The laptop came pre-installed with WinXP. I made a partition on c: for 3GB and installed RedHat 7.1. Drive D: is NTFS partition.

As soon as I boot up the system, the Redhat logo(graphic) comes in with an option for linux and dos. I guess that the REdhat must have recognised other OS and installed lilo by default. When i used alt+X, it shifted to command mode with a comment of lilo boot.


I tried changing the /etc/lilo.conf file to reflect the "default=linux" to "default=dos". This doesnt seem to make ANY difference buring booting ..

I do not know for WinXP, but for Win2k (and likely WinXP), you will need to use the NTLoader _FIRST_. This means letting windows control the boot process instead of Linux.

You can use the bootpart program http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm
to create the required files, including the boot.ini file.

After that, you can (in Windows)(under Control Panel>>System>>Startup in win2K) add an entry for Linux.

So, When the machine powers on, the NTLoader will run, giving you the choice between windows and linux (with default OS and timeouts specified in windows). If you choose Windows, windows will boot. If you choose linux, LILO will run and present you with its menu (which you can set to automatically load linux), after which linux will load.

An important note: The windows primary partition (usually C cannot be NTFS, or this will not work. It must be FAT16 or FAT32.

Also, your ENTIRE /boot partition must be located within the first 1024 cylinders of your hard drive if you only have one physical drive.

It sounds like you may have to repartition and reformat your drive, and reinstall the OS's again.

Mark

busybee

Think I have solved the problem. I was reluctant to reformat the disk. So i tried playing around with lilo config.

edit /etc/lilo.conf and set the default to either windows or dos.

after that u NEED to run 'lilo'. cause i think the boot image needs to registered and lilo.conf is not run everytime the bootloader starts.


hope this helps some one ...

That is very good news

I'm glad you got it working. I hope that means windowsXP plays better with others than win2k...

Might want to send a note to the maintainer of the dual-boot howto...

Mark

busybee

The surprising part was, I did not do any of the "complicated" stuff as mentioned in the loading of a dual boot OS. just made a partition and installed Redhat 7.1. Everything else was taken care of ..

You think I shud mention this to some group ? im not aware of any other group ..

mark .. thanks for trying to help me out

Whenever you make changes in lilo.conf, you have to run lilo again for the changes to take effect.

You are welcome. I got my problem fixed as well. Turns out GRUB will dual boot RH 7.2 and win2k using the same procedure as for LILO.

RH 7.2 is much slicker than 7.1, at least as far as KDE and the other apps goes. It is so easy now, I actually have my mother (not a computer geek, by ANY stretch!), wanting to use RH 7.2 w/ KDE instead of win2k.

Mark

This has to do with the way lilo works in contrast to windows ntloader. Ntloader reads the boot.ini file at every boot.
lilo doesn't actually read the config file, all of the nessesary configuration are written to the boot block at installation of lilo.
Everytime you run the lilo command you do a new installation to the boot block with the new settings.