So this is the setup:

One computer, 2 ATA hard drives, one CD/DVD burner, no floppy, WinXP
Pro installed. Computer is set up (thru the BIOS) to boot first from
the DVD drive, second from Drive 1.


What I plan to do:

Take half of Drive 2 and format it (using Partition Magic) as 50% XP
and 50% Linux. Then install, say, Fedora Core 4, on the Linux
partition. So at the end, all of Drive 1 and 50% of Drive 2 are XP;
50% of Drive 2 is Linux.

What I don't want to do (for various reasons):

I don't want to install GRUB in the MBR of Drive 1; I don't want to
play with boot.ini; I don't want to play with the BIOS boot sequence
every time I want to switch the OS. In short, the system is "mission
critical" enough to avoid a risk to its stability by someone like
me...

And my question is:

Is it possible (and, if so, how) to burn a CDR so that, when the system
boots, it will display something like

For XP - highlight here and press return/press 1 (or whatever)
For Fedora - highlight here and press return/press 2 (or whatever)


or vice versa and etc.

For extra points, the system should default boot to Selection 1 after x
seconds of inactivity.

Just to be clear - I don't need the CDR itself to contain XP and
Fedora; just to load one or the other.

And, while on the topic, as an alternative - is it possible to do it
with Knoppix? That is, load Knoppix and have it load either XP or
Fedora and then unload itself?

Obviously, I have looked around before posting this question, but
couldn't find the answer (at least not one that I understood...).


Thanks.

On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 09:01:09 -0800, blerer wrote:


Build a grub bootable cdrom. Here are some instructions:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...ble-CD_002dROM

You might be up against a bit of a catch 22: You need to be running linux
to build the loader disk. You can run linux as soon as you have a loader.
Perhaps, knoppix or another machine provides a solution. A boot floppy
(at installation) is also another way in.

Here are some tips, assuming you can get past that /*catch*/ (it's the
best there is ;-) )

Based on what you want, when you install linux and its loader (grub is
the most flexible), select the option to install grub on the linux
_partition_.

Since you won't be touching your primary partition, you'll need the grub
CD you made to boot linux, (just as you want).

The grub stanza on the CD for linux will be generic (no kernel specifics,
yet.)

/iso/boot/grub/menu.lst

title GNU/Linux (via grub on partition)
rootnoverify (hd1,1)
chainloader +1

title Windows 2000
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
makeactive


(Exact parameters are machine specific, Windows stanza optional.)

Your distribution will probably setup the /boot/grub/menu.lst which
sets kernel parameters, etc. That way, you can upgrade your kernel
without requiring the boot CD to be rebuilt.


Other notes: You probably want a swap partition. I also use a separate
partition just for Windows pagefile.sys.

--
Yossarian: That's some catch, that catch-22.
Doc: It's the best there is.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0065528/quotes

Douglas Mayne wrote:

Which gives you no advantage whatsoever unless it is on a physically
separate HDD.

--
Registered Linux User no 240308
Ubuntu 5.10
gordonDOTburgessparkerATgbpcomputingDOTcoDOTuk
to email me replace the obvious!

x-post trimmed to 24hoursupport.helpdesk
from the long
Newsgroups:
comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,24hoursuppo rt.helpdesk,alt.os.linux,alt.linux


On 6 Dec 2005 09:01:09 -0800, blerer wrote:

This is a permanent Linux install or a test / let's see what it's like?

If a test, don't do it.

If a let's see , then use one of the bootable CD live distros. This will
let you try several distros, and how it works with your hardware before
installing anything.

It used to be one could choose not to install LILO / GRUB. But put LILO
on a boot floppy (having made a few safety copies).

It's easy enough to do remove later.

As I haven't need to do this in a few years I don't know if FC4 still
has the option. Saying that there are lots of Linux documentation to
read first.

But you want to play with the contents of the disk / repartition ...
hmmm, odd.

My answer is: If it's mission critical don't do anything to it.

<snip long story>

OTOH some distro's boot from USB memory sticks.

Me

On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:55:22 +0000, Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote:


Yes. I've heard that, too. I read an article linked from slashdot a
couple of years ago. There is one advantage of allocating a separate
partition for pagefile.sys, though. That is, the swap partition can
setup with the Windows loader (ntldr). IME, the windows loader never
fails on primary partitions less than 8G, and that is plenty for
pagefile.sys.

BTW, all of this is rapidly becoming trivia, as obsolete as the tricks
that were required to load a 386 DOS extender. The only thing which may
end up mattering in the long run is if Windows can load in a virtual
machine.

--
Douglas Mayne

[the original article was cross-posted to more than the three maximum
beyond which I plonk, so this thread was hidden to me until I saw the
response from "Why?", so I hope my reconstruction of it doesn't mess
anything up for anyone]

On 2005-12-05, blerer@yahoo.com wrote:
Better to leave the empty space as empty space; let the Linux installer
format the space you want it to use. You normally need at least two
partitions for Linux; one for 'swap' and one for everything else. The
installation routine for most distros will guide you through this.

Have you considered installing a 'boot manager' such as GAG
<http://gag.sourceforge.net/index.html>? [1]

You want to make a boot floppy, but on a CD-R. Not a bad idea to do that
for your Windows system too - before you do anything else!

Umm, no.

Back up all your 'stuff' before you make any changes to your system. If
it is really important to you, get a second-hand computer to 'play' with
Linux on rather than do anything you aren't comfortable with on your
one-and-only machine.


[1] It isn't clear from the product's home page, but GAG can work from a
CD-R without writing anything to the MBR - although that is where I run it
from. I haven't used it with Windows; I'm all-Linux )

From the install.txt file included in the downloaded zip file:

..-----
| Starting with GAG 4.01, all language versions are distributed on one
| single disk, with a little installation program. You only have to create
| the disk (see above the instructions of how to do it), boot your computer
| from that disk, et voila! The instructions for using it, the FAQ and the
| license can be read from the installer program.
|
| You can put this file (DISK.DSK) as the boot image of a bootable CD-ROM,
| so you can have your GAG installer on a CD, instead of floppy. There's an
| ISO image in this package that you can use, if you want, to create that
| bootable CD-ROM (the file is GAG.ISO).
'-----

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

<blerer@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1133888469.002727.17350@f14g2000cwb.googlegro ups.com...

<snip>


<snip>

Ok so I am going to ask you why are you risking the stability of your system
by 'playing' with it?
If the system is that 'mission critical' then leave it alone, go buy another
system and experiment with that.

I see this reasonably frequently on PC's owned by small business people with
(in particular) teenage families.
Because there is only one PC everyone wants to do it 'their' way and
inevitably the PC ends up crashing with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The words 'Disaster Recovery Plan' usually bring only 'blank' looks.
Surprisingly the parents are equally as responsible as the teenagers for the
disaster.

None of this suggests what you want to achieve is not possible, its just
that the 'logical' solution is to use 'Grub' which is designed to do exactly
what you want. Of course it entails some element of risk, 'any' changes to a
PC involves an element of risk. Which brings me back to my original
suggestion 'if it's mission critical leave it alone'

Hope this gives you some pause to reflect on what you're trying to achieve.

Cheers
Paul.

blerer@yahoo.com wrote:

in theory you can install the linux boot loader on the linux partition, and
then mark the partition as active (using fdisk) to boot the system, leaving
your master boot record unchanged. You are then be able to toggle the active
boot partition using fdisk.

I have not tested this.

Has anyone tried this with Windows XP ?

I wouldn't test this on a "mission critial" system, nor would I recommend
using partition magic, on such a system.

You have done a full disk image backup haven't you ?

Once you start to migrate to Linux, you will be using XP less and less, until it
becomes defunct.

You could invest in a second hard drive and a removable drive caddy. (They are
not expensive these days).

Take the XP drive out, and put Linux on the new drive.

Your XP drive will then become a spare drive, once you complete the migration.

Regards,

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
393 Quinton Road West
QUINTON
Birmingham
B32 1QE

Telephone: (0121) 247 1596
International: 0044 121 247 1596

Email: markhobley at hotpop dot donottypethisbit com

http://markhobley.yi.org/

Ok, Mr. Yossairan/Catch 22 : here's an interim progress (or lack
thereof) report. Yesterday night I attempted to defeat the Catch 22: I
installed Fedora with grub in the Fedora partition (that would be hdb2,
in my case). Then re-booted with Knoppix 4.02. Then tried to create
the grub bootable cdr as per the link you provided.

As was to be expected, the instructions there weren't 100% accurate
(for example the file stage2_eltorito that you are instructed to copy
is not in the directory mentioned in the link but in a Fedora directory
called redhat, etc). When I tried to copy that file to a newly created
iso directory, I discovered that Knoppix boots up in a read-only mode.
The only way to defeat that is to launch a root terminal session, but
that requires a password I didn't have, etc., etc. (as I said,
Newbie). When I eventually figured out how to bypass all those issues,
I ran into the ultimate problem of having to use the same CD/DVD drive
in which the Knoppix DVDR resides for burning the iso image to be used
for booting... And, wouldn't you know it, Knoppix, for some strange
reason, refused to allow its own DVDR to be ejected from the drive so I
could insert a blank CDR. At which point I gave up in disgust and
called it a night.

Next time I'll try to do the same thing in another computer that has
2 drives but no Linux partition, and then copy the stage2_eltorito file
from the Knoppix directory in which it resides into the ramdisk created
by Knoppix....

Stay tuned.

Yes, I do have a full backup....
This IS a two-drive system, but the removable drive caddy is not a bad
idea. I'm going to look into that.
Having said that, by now, almost as a matter of principle, I would
still like to create the dual booting CDR; just to see if it can be
done.

To both Paul and Jerry - there was a reason why the term "mission
critical" was in quotation marks.... I'm not running the New York
Stock Exchange from home - it's just that my wife and kids need
access to this computer (and the other two I have) and I can't just
take unilateral action by trashing the C/hd1 drive. The reason I have
no problem with formatting the D drive (hd2a and hd2b) is that it IS
the D drive, there's very little data on it and, worst case, I can
just reformat the whole thing and start from scratch. I really don't
want to have to reinstall XP....

On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 13:25:38 -0800, blerer wrote:

Redhat/Fedora move things around to wherever they want in their
filesystem. They also have the habit of introducing extra confusion with
things like grub.conf instead of menu.lst. Also, I hate their use of disc
"labels" in /etc/fstab. Some things should be left in *nix form.
Thanks for the nice reminder of why life's easier if you're a /* slacker. */

For Fedora/Redhat, add an extra last step before burning the CD: duplicate
grub's configuration file to grub.conf.

# cd /iso/boot/grub
# cp menu.lst grub.conf

--
Dobbs: Look Yossarian, suppose, I mean,
just suppose everyone thought the same way you do.
Yossarian: Then I'd be a damn fool to think any different.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0065528/quotes

On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 10:43:00 +0100, Wilhelm Tell <Wilhelm.Tell@tellnet.net> wrote:

It seems to me that a few pieces are missing here.

First, the boot image file, created with dd, does it presuppose
that grub or lilo had been installed in the /boot partition?
(In the case of lilo, the procedure would have to be repeated
whenever a new kernel was installed, no?)

Second, it seems like this file has been subsequently copied into
to C: partition of Windows, no?

-Enrique

And, excusing the ignorant question, how do you do THAT? In theory, you
could be either in Linux and write the boot image file to the XP
partition, or first write it to the Linux partition, boot into XP,
access the Linux partition and then copy it to the C: partition in XP.
Is either of these steps trivial or do they require some additional
steps? Or am I missing something else here?

Bruno

I'm willing to try this on a non-essential drive; what exactly would be
required?

Bruno

blerer@yahoo.com wrote:

This utility will do that (it is genreal-purpose)..

http://www.sofotex.com/Smart-BootMan...ad_L15736.html

...form a floppy.

Gremnebulin wrote:
Thanks for the link. This is the type of software I was looking for,
but in this case there are two problems. First, this particular system
doesn't have a floppy; of course, one could be installed but it would
be easier to if Smart Boot Manager could be run from a CD. And from
whatever info I could gather, it doesn't seem like that's possible.

Second, SBM seems to be about 5-6 old. Does anyone have any idea how
it behaves with newer OSs such as XP and FC4?

Bruno

Gremnebulin wrote:
Thanks for the link. This is exactly the type of software I was
looking for, but in this case there are two problems. First, this
particular computer doesn't have a floppy; of course, one could be
installed but it would be easier to if Smart Boot Manager could be run
from a CD. And from whatever info I could gather, it doesn't seem like
that's possible.

Second, SBM seems to be about 5-6 old. Does anyone have any idea how
it behaves with newer OSs such as XP and FC4?

Bruno

blerer@yahoo.com wrote:
Allocate sufficient space on the drive to create the linux partitions, run
the installer disks for your distribution.

Only primary partitions can be marked active, so you need something like:

hda1 /boot (ext2)
hda2 /windows (fat32)
hda5 / (ext2)
hda6 /tmp (ext2)
hda7 /var (ext2)
hda8 /home (ext2)
hda9 /usr (ext2)
hda10 swap (linux swap)

Install lilo on hda1. When your linux installation is complete, reboot.

Using fdisk, you can toggle between hda1 and hda2 as the primary active
partition.

If you are on a test machine, you can also test LILO in the
MBR and configure it to boot both systems. You will see then that there is no
problem with LILO in the MBR, unless you have to reinstall windows at any
time, because windows installation screws up the MBR. Its just a case of
running a rescue disk and reactivating following this instance.

Regards,

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
393 Quinton Road West
QUINTON
Birmingham
B32 1QE

Telephone: (0121) 247 1596
International: 0044 121 247 1596

Email: markhobley at hotpop dot donottypethisbit com

http://markhobley.yi.org/

On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 10:51:13 +0100, Wilhelm Tell <Wilhelm.Tell@tellnet.net> wrote:

Can somebody enlighten this lost soul, what will be the contents of
the file thus created?

(To unsnip earlier messages in the thread:

)

I realize that this command gets one sector of 512 bytes from the
start of the partition.

But as far as I know, no file system places anything in the first
sector of the device they live in. I don't know the number of sectors
skipped, I have seen the number 32 in another recent thread, applying
to ext2/3, and I think I remember having seen the number 63 for
reiserfs a few years ago. I have always thought that this area was
reseved for boot stuff.

-Enrique