[KLUG Members] Dual boot problem on home computer

[MPs]

On Thu, 29 Apr 2004, Kevin Wixson wrote:

> 
> I think Dell's come with a very tiny partition at the front of the drive 
> that does some funky stuff, which might explain why your original setup was 
> configured in a nonstandard way. Do you think it would work to pull your 
> Linux partition on to a second drive, disconnect that drive, repartition 
> and reformat the primary drive, install Windows on it, then change the 
> partition with PM to make room for your Linux partitions (behind the Win 
> partion-Win has to be the first line,) connect the second drive, drag the 
> partitions back over then reconfigure the MBR with GRUB for dual boot?
> 
> I don't know anything, by the way. Don't take my word on anything.
> 

I saw that tiny partition, looked through the files [formated with one of 
the fats, vfat I think]. I decided it wasn't worth the 
hassle/potential-troubles to delete it. After I figured out I needed to 
fdisk /dev/hdc it all went in just fine with Lilo in the MBR of hdc.
[hdc 
 1:dell-stuff[?MB];      ??
 2:ntfs[5GB];            WIN [now XP :bleh:]
 5:fat32[10GB];          shared
 6:ext2/boot[coupleaMB]; /boot
 7:ext3[5GB];            /
 8:swap[256MB?];         swap
 Having the /boot in there is probably a bit silly, but 'eh, and the 
numbers aren't exact, but they add up to, roughly, 20 GB]

While I think that working the second drive option you described would 
work for a desktop, a laptop is a bit more tricky, though, I might be 
tempted to try rigging a second hd to an old thinkpad I have sitting 
around.

Back to the original problem, Bruce has Rob doing a GRUB boot floppy to 
boot the [hda] windows and the [hdb?c?] Linux. Would I be wrong in 
thinking that this could just be done to the hda drive, circumventing the 
floppy all together? [granted, I would want to prototype it with a floppy 
before screwing around with a drive with needed data].

> 
> At 01:55 PM 4/28/2004 -0400, MPs wrote:
> 
> >[snip]
> > > > loaded, the response time was normal, but 14 hours is a bit long to wait,
> > > > even for a Redmond product. So, reluctantly, I had to put the 
> > original drive
> > > > back in as the boot drive on the primary IDE controller.
> > >
> > > Yep, that legacy OS *MUST* be on the primary drive of the first
> > > channel.  Period.  Thats the way it works.  I'm mildly impressed that it
> > > booted at all.
> >
> >Interesting, considering that Dell shipped my laptop with said legacy OS on
> >the secondary master and a DVD on the primary. Consider my supprise when
> >fdisk told me /that/ bit.
> >