Hi group,
I'm a very green newbie, so I apologise in advance for asking a dumb question. I have a Debian Linux "Morphix" install CD which I have used to install onto my new laptop. I partitioned my hard drive and installed windows XP pro on one primary partition (which includes the MBR) and Linux onto the other primary partition. I installed LILO as part of the Debian install, and put it on the boot sector of the Linux drive.
When I start my PC, it goes straight into XP (as this is where the MBR is) and I don't get an option to select Linux. I don't believe LILO has been configured yet on Linux, but I can't seem to get to Linux on the HDD. If I boot off the Linux CD, then I am operating on the CD system, if I boot the PC, I load up XP. What steps do I have to perform to be able to get to a dual boot situation.
Thanks in advance for the assistance.
Steve
Hi Steve,
Firstly, please set your e-mail format to plain text for this list :) Many of us use non-GUI mail readers and "pretty" HTML/Rich-Text just looks god-awful :P
Now as for lilo, you are correct - Lilo needs to be installed in the boot sector. This is pretty easy to do, just grab your linux boot disk (you did make one during the install when it asked you to, right?) and boot your linux partition. Once booted, log in as root and do the following:
1. Backup your existing /etc/lilo.conf file: cp /etc/lilo.conf /etc/lilo.conf-001
2. Edit /etc/lilo.conf with your preferred text editor (nano/joe/vi/emacs etc...)
2. Find the line that reads "boot = /dev/hdaX" where X is a number, and change it to "boot = /dev/hda". This will install lilo in the MBR rather than a linux partition.
3. Now scroll down a bit, make sure you have a "delay=NN" line. This will cause lilo to wait "NN x 10" seconds before booting the default (see #4). In other words, "NN" are tenths of a second.
4. Make sure you have (at least) one "image" stanza to boot linux and one "other" stanza to boot Windows. Use the following as a guide:
default=Linux
image=/vmlinuz
# "label" is what "default" uses.
label=Linux
read-only
# Careful with this - make sure it exists first!
initrd=/initrd.img# If you have another OS on this machine to boot, you can uncomment the
# following lines, changing the device name on the `other' line to
# where your other OS' partition is.
other=/dev/hda1
# Change "default=Windows" to automatically
# boot Windows instead
label=Windows5. Save your changes to lilo.conf
6. RUN LILO!! Something like "lilo -v" without the "". Somewhere in all the stuff that is displayed should be a line:
Reading boot sector from /dev/hda
and some other stuff like this: Boot image: /vmlinuz Mapping RAM disk /initrd.img Added Linux *
Added Windows
(the * means "this is the default")
7. Reboot - you should get the lilo boot menu where you can select Windows or Linux :)
That's it :)
Now if you didn't make a boot disk - get back to us, we can give another set of destructions to boot from an install disk and use "rescue" mode, then mount your installed partitions, then "chroot" etc. Make sure you tell us what you disk layout looks like! Something like this would be REALLY handy:
/dev/hda1 = Windows
/dev/hda2 = root /
/dev/hda3 = SWAP
Cheers,
James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
