Re: Windows multiboot (aaargh!)
On Friday 19 September 2003 21:12, cr wrote:
(DOS / Win95 / Win98 install)
> Next step, see if I can boot the whole thing with GRUB....
>
> cr
"Progress" report... :)
The 'aaaargh' was prophetic....
Well, it all booted happily with Grub while it was Drive 1 in my spare PC.
So I put it in this box as /hdd, DOS would boot OK, but while I was faffing
around with 'map' and 'hide' trying to make Windows behave consistently,
*something* (whether me with Grub or Windows thinking it ought to be on Drive
1) went and munged /dev/hda5 where Debian lives. First I knew of it was
'kernel panic' when trying to boot Deb. I found that /hda1 ( /boot) was
OK, but /hda5 (root) and /hda6 ( /swap) seemed to have got
themselves lost in /hda2. And I *hadn't* backed up the mbr, nor did I
have a record of the exact partition size....
Soooooo... I got a spare drive, installed Debian on it intending to see if
I could salvage the old /hda5 somehow, and in the midst of my usual battle to
the death with dselect I came across a little utility called gpart which
guesses partitions. And, it works! OK, relying on it is a bit like
driving your car into a power pole to check if the seat belts work, but
still, I'm damn grateful to its author.
Conclusions:
1. Back up the MBR and everything else, first!
2. Be very, very careful when using 'map' to swap drives around
3. It's probably safest to let DOS/Windows occupy Drive 1, where in its
blinkered arrogance it thinks it belongs. Linux can sit somewhere else.
We all know who's really in charge and it isn't Windows ;)
cr
Reply to: