DUAL BOOT: Slackware 10.2 & WinXP
 

Hi. I would like to dual-boot slack and XP, but the thing is i dont want to install xp on first drive, i want to install it to the second drive i have which is slower :p. I tried it and got an error from XP , looks like it doesnt like to be on second hard. is there a tweak/hack or something i can do to make it work ? thanks alot.

hello :)
i am also looking for this solution..but i guess windows is stubborn enough to not to let you do this.

Windows needs to be able to write to the active partition. So you need to format it with FAT16 or FAT32. 100MB ought to be enough.

By the way... what error? We need to know we're not talking about something completely different.

Format what as FAT16 or FAT32 ?

I really cant recall the exact error, but i've installed windows first on second drive then linux on first drive so i can setup lilo afterwards to see both of the OS's. it sees windows ok, it's adding it to the lilo boot prompt but when i choose to boot from it it does say smth about mbr i think. linux still boots ok.

Post the output of:
cat /etc/lilo.conf
df -h
fdisk -l

i cant do that, cause there is nothing on that computer anymore. basically i have a pc with 2 harddrive's and without any OS's. now i want to install Slackware on Primary Master ide and WinXP on Secondary Master ide. What are the steps ? Which OS shoul be first, what requirements ?

@redxii
Did you mean to make a /boot partition on /dev/hda ( /dev/hdc ) of file system type FAT16 and FAT32 or what ?

*EDIT*
Oh, and the reason why i dont put the slower drive Primary Master ide and install Windows on that and get rid of all this fuss, is because i think it's mbr is broken, no system would boot from it as primary master, but it works perfectly when used as primary slave or secondary master/slave.

I use a setup that probably most other 99.9% of people do, where Windows is the first partition on the first disk:

/dev/hda1: XP - NTFS C: [Active partition/location of MBR with LILO installed; XP's boot files]
/dev/hda2: NTFS E:
/dev/hdb1: NTFS D:
/dev/hdb2: Slackware - ReiserFS [/boot is located here]
/dev/hdb3: Swap

I'm not saying to create a dedicated /boot partition for Slackware, but one for Windows. /boot can remain where you install all the other Slackware files.

Boot from the Slackware CD and open up cfdisk using the command "cfdisk". Make the first partition of /dev/hda a primary partition and 512MB in size. Mark it as Bootable, and make the Type FAT16 which should be #6 in cfdisk. Then Write the partition to the disk.

Boot XP setup, and choose where you want to install XP on the second disk. After you choose where to install XP, it will say that C: is damaged or unformatted (the partition you made in cfdisk) and asks you to choose a file system for C:. Pick FAT; NTFS might work just as well, so it's up to you but personally if I had to go with this setup I would choose NTFS since I don't run as administrator in XP and malware won't be able to easily screw up the boot files. Then proceed through the rest of the XP install and installing Linux as usual.

I think Windoze will install on /dev/hdc just fine. If so, install Windoze and get that over with. Then install Slackware. When you go through Slackware's install, tell LiLO to install to the MBR and do the expert LiLO option. It will have found your Windoze partitions earlier, and if you gave them a mount point, you're okay there. Then in LiLO just tell it to boot Slackware and Windoze by following the instructions.

Previously in this computer I had Windoze on an ATA drive and Slackware on a SATA drive and had no problems whatsoever. LiLO is quite intelligent enough to handle it.

NB: LiLO will install to the MBR of the drive with Slackware, and when it boots to Windoze, that OS will use the NTLDR on that drive.

I have XP(ntfs) and solaris and a fat32 partition on hda and linux on hdb
lilo is on hdb
boot sectors are active on both disks
If I set the bios to boot from hda I get XP
If I set the bios to boot from hdb (which is what I use) I get lilo menu which I have set up to offer linux,XP and solaris.
This the other way round to what you require, but I dont see any reason why you couldn't do something similar.
If XP 'must' have its 'C' drive on the first disk (I am not sure about this) you could do the same sort of thing as me, and swap your slow disk to ide0, to make windows happy

If windows is ntfs, it is worth having a separate partition somewhere formatted as fat32 for sharing files between your OS's (til ntfs writing is easy from linux) for instance I have my bookmarks stored here so they are the same on both OS's

it seems best to install windows first in any case

tobyl

edit: ok Chinaman said it better, I posted without seeing his latest addition :-)

To expand on what redxii said:

From what I remember from triple booting 98SE, Win2K and Linux a while ago (it seemed a good idea at the time), you will want a small fat32 primary partition as hda1 for ntldr (think of it as a separate /boot partition for windows) .

The rest of WinXP should happily go wherever you want it, if it installs the same as Win2K.

Edit: Oops - Chinaman and tobyl's solution is better - that will teach me to read the whole thread

hi, i already posted this elsewhere, but i think it could help here.:)
http://geek.scorpiorising.ca/GeeK_Zo...hp?topic=475.0
hope it helps!!!:)
Denny

Dual boot problem.
 

Windows XP and 2000 really likes to be in the 1st sector of the first disk. If you install Windows first on hda, even if you have to switch which disk is hda, then install Linux and let LILO or GRUB find the Windows partion. You shouldn't have a problem. Everytime I'v done dual or triple boot this has worked well for me.

I ran into this problem with wanting Slack on my 10000rpm drive (ide1) and xp on my 7200rpm (ide2). I meerly removed my ide1, installed xp on ide2. I then booted slack off the cd on the ide2 drive, (NOTE: BOOTED, not installed) and then told fdisk to make the drive and partition non bootable. then removed ide2 and pluged in ide1, installed slack. I then just added the xp info into lilo manually. shutdown, pluged in both ide cables, and Vola. it worked for me.
good luck