stormy

pls do not download by dial up tooo slow.

1 contact tasmanian linux users group someone will burn you a cd or two.

2 or go to a newsagent with the dvd edition of australian mag APC it has bootable dvd of a number of distros
jan was FC3
mar is suse 9.2 (no no ahhh)
anyhow go to a install fest with tasmanian lug who love to show how to do it just email the friendly person as per the link........seeing is a lot easier.

abisko00 sorry mdk did not do it for you......you need to be a bronze chick magnet like me (joke)

This is how to make dual booting between Win XP and SuSE 9.1 work (I'm using 2 HDD that Win XP on hde(HDD SATA) and SuSE on hdb(HDD IDE/PATA slave))

Go to YAST.....then

on Windows Configuration bootloader u must fill this:

Tittle: whatever

Unhide (hd0,0)
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
map (hd1) (hd0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot


This should work! (work on me )

But I have question how to add bootloader config when I install Fedora Core 3 (in FC3 I dont install bootloader).....?

(my FC3 installed on my HDD IDE/PATA that has 120gb with 3 partition with my SuSE 9.1on this HDD too)

aus9 thanks, went to hobart (120k) got fedora from the aus linux journal, tried to load it, got as far as usb drive load, stopped. REad journal, nee to do many things which will take me some time and learniing, now I have to find out how to uninstall suse and get my pc back to normal. Fireedoo, I tried to do that but again got to yast and found I didn't know how to get to the bit where you cn type in that instruction. Solution, download knoppix over night, tear hair out, shoot computer. Start again thanks to you all I shall continue and sometime it may come out right. Does anyone have or know of a driver for a 56k itv V.92 fax moden or a realtex alc880 audio codec. Maybe if I can get this thing onto the net I will can have more success ratther than doing it through a laptop and windowsxp

For Aus9 and Stormbay Re: last post #93:
I've been watching your posts since I have the same problem. Here are the results of my fdisk and cat commands requested from Storm earlier. Hope a comparison between us will help us both and your assistance. My XP sits in an HP pavilion a620n, 160GB HD, 1G RAM can only run SuSE 9.2.
Do not have floppy drive no XP CD since OEM installed sys. Info as follows:

NT SuSE LINUX Boot problem

output of fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hde: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hde1 1 626 5027368+ b W95 FAT32
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hde2 * 627 7738 57127140 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hde3 7739 19455 94116802+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hde5 7739 7869 1052226 82 Linux swap
/dev/hde6 7870 19455 93064513+ 83 Linux

output of cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Mon Jul 26 14:56:08 2004

color white/blue black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title Linux
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hde6 vga=0x31a splash=silent desktop resume=/dev/hde5 showopts
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
title Windows
root (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hde6 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off vga=normal noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 3
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd

Paul

I refer you to post 64.....your OEM probably used an image system to install XP but they are required under MS licence to give you a certificate and cd.....or the rescue cd as you may have a cheap board and they write drivers to that cdr.

yes you need to be careful if you crash and need to re-install but contact your OEM to see why they are not supplying the proper cds.....and get all the drivers and documents while you are at....you paid for it.

COMMENTS

your output looks like the kernel is an oldie thinking you have HDE post all your drives and if any are raided pls.

2) The asterix says hde2 is bootable so what is hde1?
could be that C drive is supposed to hde1 and so your menu needs to change from
hd0,1 to hd0,0?


3) I hope not but the other possibilty is your first linux partition on that big drive is beyond cylinder 1024 and maybe grub can not handle it......redoing the grub my way in mbr gives you feedback which grub-install lacks.....time to gripe with suse again....no they don't care.

4) as you are taking care.....make sure you have a xp rescue cd and know how to rescue the mbr and put the ntldr back .....test it .......and that should give you confidence........what the heck get rid of ms and come over to us?

sorry if i ask a simple question.
i instalkled suse 9.2 on my laptop.
i have 40 gb harddrive.
i gave 10 gb - to windows xp
29 gb linux ext3
1 gb swap. i used partition magic 8 for that.

when i installed i noticed that it cose 3.3 gb partion only.
it was called /root v(that is the installation default)

i installed grub - but when i reboot grub is corrupt.

what have i done wrong.
any help will be greatly welcomed

avi

sorry i forgot - grub is corrupt and i get anerror "grub geom error"

find a friend that can loan you or burn you a knoppix cd

use that cd for a program called qtparted ......a bit like pmagic to delete your linux partitions
then resize your ms make it bigger....then save the change
that writes to master boot record.

then without quitting re-run the same program to create your linux partition and swap file and save the change.

then reboot but insert your MS cd and run the rescue facility to restore your ms bootloader into mbr and reboot to test

then reboot with your preferred linux cd and install linux into your new partitions and redo grub into mbr and see if you have success.

post back if you have any probs

how to install Mandrake without erasing other distro in my PC, I have 3 partition hdb2 for FC3 and hdb3 extended (hdb4 and hdb5) for SUSE 9.2(default OS).....so how to install MDK 10.1 on hdb 1?

fireedo

unless my brain is wonky, your post appears unrelated to the subject of dual boot to suse and windows.
If you agree can you delete and repost in Mdk section?
Secondly you can only have 4 primary partitions so hdb4 and hdb5 can not BOTH be logical within hdb3 extended.
after you cull your post here so will I

thanks for your patience

Tried the solution in this thread and still stuck. would love some ideas.

My PC came configured with Windows XP as the main OS and a small "recovery area" which contains a copy of the OS for loading if the main install breaks - this can be reinstalled if need be - but rubs out all your data. It is an HP Pavillion. I have been using it for some time and it has all my data on it.

I installed 9.1 Professional straight out of the box. There seems to be a well known bug with Grub and the 2.6 kernal which prevent dual boot - the system hangs with a chainloader error. I followed the instructions on this site regarding updating the parted install, setting the bios to LBA and reinstalling.

After a little editing of the menu.lst file I can get the system to boot into the XP recovery partition: However this just offers me the option of reinstalling XP. I cant seem to get my machine to boot to XP.

Ideally I want to be able to dual boot XP and Linux.

I'm stuck now. Can you give me some ideas? The Suse guys aren't interested because the distro is > 90 days old.

Regards

Tom



> ==================================================
> menu.lst file:
> > # Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sun May 1 01:16:17 2005
> > > color white/blue black/light-gray
> default 0
> timeout 8
> gfxmenu (hd0,2)/message
> > ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
> title Linux
> kernel (hd0,2)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 vga=0x314 splash=silent fixpart=1 acpi=off desktop resume=/dev/hda6 showopts > initrd (hd0,2)/initrd
> > ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
> title Windows
> rootnoverify (hd0,0)
> chainloader +1
> > ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy### > title Floppy
> root (fd0)
> chainloader +1
> > ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
> title Failsafe
> kernel (hd0,2)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off vga=normal noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 3
> initrd (hd0,2)/initrd
> >

I have also tried:

> title Windows
> rootnoverify (hd0,1)
> chainloader +1

Didn't work either.

===================================================
> > output from fdisk -l
> > Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes 240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 15505 cylinders Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
> > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/hda1 1 648 4898848+ b W95 FAT32
> /dev/hda2 * 649 10697 75966408 7 HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/hda3 10698 10710 96390 83 Linux
> /dev/hda4 10711 15506 36250672+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
> /dev/hda5 10711 15436 35728528+ 83 Linux
> /dev/hda6 15437 15506 522081 82 Linux swap

Tom,

If at all possible back your data up before proceeding. It should still be accessible. I have been successful at reinstalling Windows into it's orginal partition without the loss of data (just remember NOT to repartition or format the NTFS/FAT partition itself). There shouldn't be any issue with reinstalling XP ontop of itself, the only issue would come up is in profile configurations and the programs you have loaded. I've been able to work around this by backing up My Documents and the XP system files. If you do a reinstall without doing a back up of the system files you can easily re-create the user profiles, and then copy the old profiles into the new. Windows doesn't overwrite the profiles stored in the My Documents directory; infact, this is true even if you name a profile the same as an orginal one - the new profile using the old profile name will have a ".machinename" extension put on the end of it. Make sure you use the option to "leave the existing file structure intact" during the re-install.

Having said this ... it sounds as if your old system is there merely the windows boot loader isn't being directed into the system correctly. I'm sure someone here more savy than I can give you a sense of direction and instructions on how to proceed. At the moment backing your old data up sounds like it's the most important thing to do. If you can boot from a "live distro" (knoppix, or SLAX) and access the net, email as much of your configuration information to your self and download it later once you have your system fixed. I have successfully used both of the afore mentioned distros to save numerous Windows systems that had become corrupt (usually I back information up onto a thumb drive, or burn it to a CD).

I am curious, is your SuSe install working? ... if so, you should be able to back your profile and system information up by copying it onto your linux partition. Once you've done this you can do a re-install of Windows. If not, use the live distro following the senerio above to back your information up then zap both the HP system recovery partition using your XP cd and do a reinstall of Windows.

Worse case senerio ... don't go back to Windows (j/k ... I'm finding it hard to totally abandon Windows also ... but I am closer)! Hope I haven't confused the situation.

op.

I would need the output of your /etc/fstab to comment on your linux but

XP is on hda2 so its
title XP
root (hd0,1)
hide (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

you have a W98 on hda1 so stop XP from seeing it by hiding it on boot

read my tutorial if you disagree with my numbers

if still fails change root command to rootnoverify which is the old way

Hi

This is my /etc/fstab. I did try:

title XP
root (hd0,1)
hide (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

as per your (very good) article. Still get an "unknown file system error"

Tom


/dev/hda5 / reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/hda3 /boot ext2 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/hda2 /windows/C ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=00 02,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/hda6 swap swap pri=42 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
/dev/cdrecorder /media/cdrecorder subfs fs=cdfss,ro,procuid,nosuid, nodev,exec,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy subfs fs=floppyfss,procuid,nodev,

Hi linuxuser99,
This will not help you with the dual boot install at first but will be welcomed by you eventually.
You say you have an HP pavillion PC where they have been unkind enough not to provide you with a full XP install disc, just a very vulnerable recovery partition. A little known fact is that your activation code for your machine is just that, it's for your machine, the only thing missing is a valid install disc. If you obtain a copy of a disc of your version/service pack status of XP, you have a usable disc, what's missing, your activation key.
I bet HP were also kind enough not to put and activation key sticker on the machine, all is not lost though, as a small download program called 'Belarc advisor' will give you your key and also sufficient information about the hardware in your box for you to be able to track down the correct XP drivers for the machine.
Once you have those burnt to CD, then I would suggest dual booting the box using the copy XP disc and then doing a telephone activation, simply put XP into a spare partition. Having made sure you are then free of the limitations imposed by the unfortunate oversight on the part of HP when selling you the machine, you are now free to set up your box how you wish, with the valid XP operating system for your box and whatever flavour of Linux you care to install.
If you ever do re-install XP from a backup, it insists on sitting in the same partition it was backed up from otherwise it throws a wobbly.
If you wish to rebuild the XP Boot loader you just need an XP install disc, not the HP recovery disc, go into recovery console and at the C: prompt type /bootcfg list
then type /bootcfg rebuild
Then follow the selection typing yes etc, until you get to the one asking for the bootloader sequence you then type /fastdetect.
This will stop Suse booting but let you boot into XP. then ensure you have the insurance of a moveable/ recoverable XP system as detailed above.



Mad Malc

mad malc

well done in solving the hardware issue, my fading brain cells recalls another laptop Maker had the bios backed up onto a partition can't remember the brand name

but its interesting how arrogant some of these companies are in forcing their consumers into these stressful situations

if someone would only give me a laptop I could see how to fix it, only joking.