MBR question

[bighara]

So my dual boot box went ker-boom. I'm reinstalling (as I write this on a different machine,obviously :D) & it seems to me someone told me that if you install M$ after Linux , Windoze rewrites the MBR so that only M$ boots. Is this right? If so, how do I edit/fix that so that both will work? Or am I screwed & need to just put W98 on first then re-do Linux AGAIN?

[Hatecrime69]

Yeah, that's what win (95 and up) does, it's better to install win first then linux (and lilo) second. If you want to put lilo on your mbr that is (I have it there too) I don't know a way of fixing it after the fact though

[MBMarduk]

For crissakes people, are you that shortsighted?

1)Make a friggin' BOOTDISK.
If Winders fscks your MBR over...
2)Boot the floppy
3)Rerun LILO or your favorite bootloader so you can boot both!

[mychl]

:cool: Yeah, what he said... you guys need to learn about aukhums razor....
..the simplest answer is usually the right one... :cool:

[DMR]

bighara,
Yes, if you install Window$ after installing Linux, it will overwrite your MBR (which will wipe out LILO), and MBMarduk's solution will fix the problem.

However:

MBMarduk...ummm, havin' a bad day? Repeat after me:
"Mellow...Mellow...Mellow...Mellow..."

No need to chomp on newbies. They've already been through enough. :D :D

[Jeepsta]

Newbie or no Newbie you should always have a boot disk for any OS you install. Its mistakes like this that will make you remember to always have a boot disk. I am looking at mine right now..... :D

[bdg1983]

If you had to reinstall both, you will need to edit your /etc/lilo.conf and add a stanza for Windows to allow booting either os. Then rerun /sbin/lilo.

[MBMarduk]

Originally posted by DMR:


MBMarduk...ummm, havin' a bad day? Repeat after me:
"Mellow...Mellow...Mellow...Mellow..."

No need to chomp on newbies. They've already been through enough. :D :D

:o
Sorry if it came over aggressively: I know no-one's born with Linux knowledge.
I didn't MEAN to for my post to come across aggressively.
It's just that I posted that at 2:30 AM after spending a lot of the day in "General..." tryin' to help people, so I guess I was pretty damn tired and thought the bootdisk idea to be just SOOOOOO obvious that I didn't realize.
Again; sorry...I'm only human.

- Mike

[bighara]

Actually, I kinda laughed when I read MBMarduk's reply. It WAS an obvious solution & one in my aggravated condition after losing all that lovely configuring (read: Themes :p), I wasn't in a position to spot. Of course, I am an exceptionally good sport. ;)

I do have a Boot Diskette for my Mandrake 7.1. (I'm dumb, but not CRAZY!) So, for the record, to "rerun LILO", I should boot from the floppy then edit my /etc/lilo.conf and add what to get dual boot? I am not up on this stuff (yet :D).

[ 29 March 2001: Message edited by: bighara ]

[bdg1983]

Since I use Grub and not Lilo, I would have to search the forums for an example of lilo.conf for dual booting or look through the os booting NHF's.

Could you give it a try. I've been on since 5:30 this morning and want to take a break to work on my Netware server and put a PC together. Should be easy to find. Search for lilo.conf.

Of course I could have probably found it for you in the length of time it took me to type this. Don't need the searching practice though.

[mychl]

OK, heres what you do.

You need to know what partition windows is on, then edit your lilo.conf file to add it. You can pretty much follow the format of the existing linux image that will already be there, just change the things you need to point it to your win partition. DON"T FORGET to back up your lilo.conf first.

Once that is done, just type lilo, that will run it.

Correct me if I'm wrong here guys!!

that should be it, and I'm at work so I can't show you what to put in for the windows boot image.... shouldn't be to tough though.... Good luck ;)

[MBMarduk]

Ofcourse...."man lilo" will tell you and hey, it isn't even as difficult as most manpages.

If I'm not mistaken you should add the following to your /etc/lilo.conf:

image = /dev/hda1 #If Windows is C:
label = Windows
read-only


I'm not sure about any of this...it's been a looong while since I used lilo to boot Win98.

Just play a bit with it, it won't damage your system anyhow.