New Installation or dual boot

[Qqmike]

Re: New Installation or dual boot

“I could use GParted and make a small partition for GRUB - that goes on sda, right?”

Sorry, I just re-read your post. Actually, your dedicated GRUB partition can go anywhere (I.e., on any sdx drive).

I have two SATA HDDs, sda and sdb. The PC boots from sda = hd0 drive. I've got a dedicated GRUB partition on sdb at sdb1. I built it as per the How-to. My PC boots in BIOS first from sda = hd0. So, to install GRUB from my dedicated GRUB partition in sdb1 = (hd1,0) to the MBR of the first- boot BIOS drive, I did (as per the how-to's):
sudo grub
grub> root (hd1,0)
grub> setup (hd0)

(btw, I also have another dedicated GRUB partition in sda2 = (hd0,1); XP is in sda1; I have not used sda2 for quite some time, but should I want it to be my ruling GRUB partition, I do the following to set it up and install its GRUB to the MBR of the first-boot BIOS HDD:
sudo grub
grub> root (hd0,1)
grub> setup (hd0)

At the moment, sda2 is sitting there, idle, with grub files and a menu,lst and ready to go, but not being used. It's just like the GRUB partition sdb1.)

You can do this stuff all the time, and anytime you wish to change your setup. GRUB is real flexible and easy to use that way.


Btw, here's a classic dual-boot site, and many other goodies there as well, by Herman @
Bigpond, home: http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/
(e.g., check out the GRUB page)

[PattiMichelle]

Re: New Installation or dual boot

I see what was meant about no "patterns" in how these things work out.
sda1=windows
sda2=extended partition (containing...)
sda5=linux
sda6=linux
sda7=swap

...so it really does depend on which flavor of Linux - here is what Hardy live grub reports:

grub> geometry (hd0)
geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 60801/255/63, The number of sectors = 976773168, /dev/sdb
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
Partition num: 4, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 5, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 6, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
grub>

In SuSE, it would be 0,5,6,7...
Thanks!!!!
Patti

[Qqmike]

Re: New Installation or dual boot


PattiMichelle,
Here's another tidbit about device naming.
Whatever drive your PC boots from right now, this time, is seen by BIOS and by GRUB as hd0 during the current booting session.
For example,
Let's say you have two internal HDDs, sda = hd0 and sdb = hd1.
And you connect an external USB HDD. Using sudo fdisk -lu and grub> geometry (hd<TAB>, you'll see that the external USB HDD is seen as sdc = hd2 (by BIOS and GRUB).
So, you run the Kubuntu Live CD installer and install Kubuntu to the external USB HDD.
When you do so, the installer will see the external USB HDD as sdc (and so with partitions, sdc1, sdc2, etc.). So, to install GRUB to the MBR of the external USB HDD, you indicate that by specifying (hd2) as the location to put GRUB in (= the MBR of hd2). After installing Kubuntu to the external USB HDD, you re-start your PC and enter BIOS setup and direct BIOS to boot from the external USB HDD. No problem (assuming your BIOS has the capability to “boot from USB”). EXCEPT, when you see Kubuntu on the boot menu and select it, you'll get a GRUB error message. That's because the menu.lst on the external USB HDD refers to Kubuntu as being on (hd2,0) (assuming you put Kubuntu on the first partition of the external USB HDD). To make your PC boot from the external USB HDD and successfully boot Kubuntu installed there, you must edit menu.lst on the external to read
root (hd0,0)
for every reference to Kubuntu in the menu.lst.
That's because of the rule I stated above: When your PC actually boots from the external USB HDD, BIOS will see the external as hd0 (and so will GRUB); and, of course, (hd0,0) = the first partition (partition 0) of drive hd0.

Should you ever wish to read about this some more, here's a how-to on flash drives that applies to flash drives and to external USB HDDs:
How To Make GRUB Thumb Drive
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081748.0
(read down through the Replies there where I have included other topics including what I'm talking about in this post)

[PattiMichelle]

Re: New Installation or dual boot

'K, got it all set up:
sda1 WinXP
sda2 extended partition
sda5 SuSe /
sda6 SuSe home
sda7 Kubuntu 8.04 /
sda8 Kubuntu 8.04 home

My chainloader:
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: kubuntu###
title Kubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron
configfile (hd0,8)/boot/grub/menu.lst

But it reports GRUB error 13: invalid or unsupported executable format I guess I must have stuck the bootloader in the wrong place (I *thought* I was careful with that) because I see no menu.lst in the Kubuntu /boot/grub directory

[Snowhog]

Re: New Installation or dual boot

If sda8 is the actual physical partition you have HH installed on, then in GRUB it would be referenced as hda,7 (remember, GRUB starts counting with zero).

[PattiMichelle]

Re: New Installation or dual boot

mis-type on my part :-X
sda7 = swap
sda8 = root
sda9 = home
When I installed, I pressed the "advanced" button on the install screen and gave it (hd0,7) as the device to put GRUB on. Everything seems to be in order in the /boot directory tree (on sda8=hd0,7=root drive), but there's no file menu.lst in the /boot/grub directory
Patti

PS: I also mistyped the GRUB error - if I give it hd(0,7) I get the error 13, if I give it hd(0,8) then I get error 15 (file not found), which I guess makes sense since there's no /boot/grub on the /home partition...

[Snowhog]

Re: New Installation or dual boot

Look in your /home directory! Again, GRUB begins numbering from 0, so using your partitioning setup, this is what you have, and how GRUB sees them:

sda1 = hd0,0
sda2 = hd0,1
sda3 = hd0,2
sda4 = hd0,3
sda5 = hd0,4
sda6 = hd0,5
sda7 = hd0,6
sda8 = hd0,7
sda9 = hd0,8

[Qqmike]

Re: New Installation or dual boot

"When I installed, I pressed the "advanced" button on the install screen and gave it (hd0,7) as the device to put GRUB on. Everything seems to be in order in the /boot directory tree (on sda8=hd0,7=root drive), but there's no file menu.lst in the /boot/grub directory"

I'd say that's a problem. No menu.lst.
You specified it correctly: "sda8=hd0,7=root." EXCEPT it is: (hd0,7)
It suggests there could be something wrong with the installer CD or the installation, and, based on past cases, it could cause other problems. I'd try the whole thing again:

-- download Kubuntu 8.04; (Or, just check the one you have first as follows
-- check the Md5sum;
-- burn it to iso CD--a good CD (Verbatim or similar; slow, like 8-12x);
-- run the live Kubuntu CD and select Check CD for Defects;
-- run the live CD as a test session for an hour (use Konqueror for browser or install Firefox through Add/Remove Programs in the live session, etc.);
-- then install Kubuntu to (hd0,7) -- type it just that way, with parentheses, no spaces, the zero is zero, not letter "O"; repeat what you did in Step 6: Advanced, (hd0,7).

I've not used SuSe. Its GRUB controls the booting, right? So when you turn on the PC, you see a boot menu (menu.lst) coming from SuSe, right? We've had people here dual booting with SuSe, so I can't imagine there'd be any strange issues with that part of this picture. (For example, Red Hat has some LVM stuff going on, and that can really mess up certain things if you aren't aware how to deal with LVM--we had a case here like that this past 6 months.) BUT, anyway, * you don't have a menu.lst! * Now that IS an issue that we can identify as being not right

[PattiMichelle]

Re: New Installation or dual boot

Thanks!!! - I'll give it a try this weekend...

EDIT: I found out what the problem was! I noticed during installation that my first SATA drive was called sdb, not sda as I'd expect! So all I had to do was specify (hd1,7) rather than (hd0,7). So now it's booting fine. I tried installing the NVidia driver from Adept for my NV8300 card, but the screen went blank and stayed that way through a reboot. I used the recovery boot to remove the nvidia driver. I've had to most success in SuSE with compiling my own driver - I guess that's true for Kubuntu, too.