Help! Dual Boot Problem w/Mandrake 7.2

[gianfranko]

Ok, here is my situation: I have 3 hard drives 2 SCSI & 1 IDE. Windows is installed on the largest of the 3 drives (a 18.2GB HD). I wanted to install Mandrake 7.2 on this same drive, and setup a dual boot. I have been trying to do this using Partion Magic & Boot Magic. At first I tried creating a primary partition for linux + the swap. Everything installed perfectly, but upon reboot the machine will start booting linux (I think) and stall. It displayed the message: "stage1" and after it stalled. Then I tried installing it on a logical drive of an extended partition (this is what partition magic recommended) and still got the same results only this time I couldnt access the C: drive not even with a floppy. I am now with a win system fresh from a backup (thank God for those) and the logical drive to which I installed linux is still there. So I decided to setup Bootmagic to allow me boot to the linux partition, but that still didnt work. The system just freezes. Any advise????

[CR2]

Well, the core of the problem might be boot magic and/or partition magic.

you see, stage1, stage2 is the grub boot loader (comes with mandrake) trying to load itself, but it obviosly can't. the grub, must be installed on the MBR (master boot record), which in your case is occupied by boot magic. since dos can't read LInux partitions, that might be the reason why you can't access anything. if you have configured (i dunno what you actually configured with these 3rd party programs) the linux drive as c (or the main one), the bios will attempt to load the os from there, and won't. it is all in the way you have configured the partitions. you shouls not create an extended partition, but another logical drive instead. becaseu, an extended partition, is an extension to a current partition, not a logical drive, and won't be detected as one.

you have several options.. since you have 3 HDD, you can install another os and boot from this drive, then using the newly installed os, take a look at the drive that is causing you problems. now, when istalling Linux, you have to be prepared that you might not get it configured to run from the first time, but you might have to change partitions (reformat and loose al data on that disk) until you assign them right.

so, my best advice is to reformat the drive in question, and create 4 partitions. 1 as the main Linux (2GB or more, but you can push it and fill it all on the first run), a swap partition (128 or 192 or 256MB etc), a boot partition (16 or 32 MB). now, format these in the FAT.

next, reinsall linux, when you reach the partition part, select your pre-formatted partitions as your main, swap and boot. (the main must be linux native, swap must be of type swap). Now, linux will reformat the disk again, BUT it will use the same configuration as you left it after the FAT format. this should all work well.

A notice:

Don't ever, ever assign drive C to be used by Lunux. For example, on my laptop, i have drive c (windows), G:\(linux main), e:\(swap) etc. It is also recommended that you install any windows based OS before you install linux, and that you create a linux boot disk no matter what.

i hope this helps you somehow. I have Red-hat 6.2 and mandrake 7.0, and i find mandrake to be the less sensitive to partitions, so you are in the green.

[CR2]

just forgot to add something.. i said make 4 partitions. the largest, will be for windows obviously.. so install windows there (on the C:\ drive). then go ahead and place linux on the other 3. this should solve it.

[gianfranko]

The first time I tried it bootmagic wasnt enabled! and i installed linux to a primary ext2 partition, and it didnt work.
Then i retried, by installing linux to the logical drive of an extended ext2 partition. Everything on the install went perfectly well. I dont understand why i cant boot into the installed linux which is on the logical drive on the extended partition (ext2). My situation right now is that my primary partition c:\ has windows on it and bootmagic is enabled.

[gianfranko]

the partitions on your laptop, are they FAT32 or ext2?????????? My goal is to install linux on an ext2 partition

[mdwatts]

If your Linux boot partition is installed past the 1024 cylinder point (around 8GB), then Grub must be installed in the MBR.

If the boot partition is below the 1024 point, then Grub can be installed in the Linux partition and Boot Magic can be used in the MBR.