On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 13:06:38 -0700, Paul E Condon wrote:
> I want to dual boot an i686 machine with Debian Sarge and Windoze. My
> situation is somewhat special, so the directions that I find when I
> google the topic do not really apply IMHO.
>
> The i686 computer already has Sarge installed on a 60G HD, and Windoze
> XP installed on a 30G HD that is sitting inside the case. But the
> Windoze HD is currently disconnected from both the ribbon cable and
> the power cable.
>
> I want to add an appropriate stanza to lilo.conf and connect cables to
> get dual boot with a minimum of reinstalling. I would like to have the
> 60G HD be hda under Linux, and the 30G HD be C: under Windoze. I would
> like to use lilo.
>
> My understanding is that bios boot code on an i686 looks at the MBR of
> the master drive on the first IDE channel to find the 2nd stage boot
> program, and that lilo overwrites this record.
>
> If I do the cabling so that Windoze HD is the slave drive, lilo should
> not touch the MBR of the Windoze HD. Correct?
>
> So what do I put in the Windoze stanza of lilo.conf to make boot program
> load Windoze? And is there a reasonable hope that Windoze can be made to
> think that the slave drive is C:? Or will it do this automatically?
>
> Or, am I crazy to be contemplating this?
>
> TIA
You don't say which version of Windows you are using, or whether the
Windows drive was the primary drive when Windows was installed.
I'm running multi-boot Linux and Windows XP with Windows XP on the first
partition in the first slave drive (i.e. what would be /dev/hdb to Linux).
When I installed XP, it was on the primary drive; I moved the drive to
the slave position and, rather than mess with boot.ini, etc., I simply
swapped bios drive numbers in lilo for the Windows boot. If you are using
XP or W2K or later, this stanza should work in the situation which you
describe:
other=/dev/hdb1
label=WinXP
table=/dev/hdb
master-boot
--
....................paul
It is important to realize that any lock can be picked with a big
enough hammer.
-- Sun System & Network Admin manual