Trouble booting multiple OSes from the same hard drive

[giac_fab]

I have a pc with three OS :

1-winzozA xp on 1° partition of a disk (hdb1)
2-winzozB xp on 3° partition of a disk (hdb3)
3-puppy on 3° partition of a disk (hda5)

Now, puppy and winzozA can boot normally by grub, winzozB can boots only by boot.ini (boot.ini is on hdb1)

My pc tells about a problem whit the number of cylinder that my bios can suport ....

[Bruce B]

1-winzozA xp on 1° partition of a disk (hdb1)
2-winzozB xp on 3° partition of a disk (hdb3)
3-puppy on 3° partition of a disk (hda5)

-------------
What is hdb2? If it's an extended partition, then hdb3 would be a logical partition as opposed to a primary partition.

Q: Will the NT line of Windows boot from a logical partition?

Q: Did the hdb3 ever boot properly?

Q: Can you post GRUB's menu.lst?

-------------

I translate the cylinders as maybe something trying to boot from 1024 - but I can't say for sure.

Q: How old is the computer?

Q: What size are your hard drives?

[giac_fab]

Here my two disk analized by gparted ....

My pc is an athlon 2600 , not very old .....

The error is " ERROR 18 : selected cylinder exceeded maximum supported by BIOS "

My grub menu is :

# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'. Sat Mar 31 15:02:50 2007
#
# Start GRUB global section
#timeout 30
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section

# Other bootable partition config begins
title Windows (on /dev/hdb1)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
# Other bootable partition config ends


# Linux bootable partition config begins
title PUPPY (on /dev/hda5)
map (hd0,0) (hd0,4)
map (hd0,4) (hd0,0)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0
initrd /initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends

# Other bootable partition config begins
title Windows (on /dev/hdb3)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1
# Other bootable partition config ends

[Bruce B]

Thank you for the information. Well done.

Linux is very tolerant about where it boots from.

Windows is not so tolerant.

(I'm glad to see hdb3 is a primary)

I'm wondering if your first boot device is hda as defined in the bios setup.

How feasible would it be to change jumpers and make hdb == hda and hdb == hda

It seems some of the mapping you are doing would not be necessary and Windows would find itself where it usually is.

I'm also a bit concerned about the cylinder errors.

I like that you installed XP on FAT32, that's what I'd do.

Do you suppose it might be best to install one XP on the first primary of one drive and the other XP on the first primary of the second drive?

I've installed two Windows (9x) on two primary partitions of hda. The way I did it was to hide the partition I don't want to boot, and unhide and make active the one I do.

The title of this topic is "Grub trouble"

If you think you have Grub troubles, there is a way to install Grub to the superblock of your Linuxes and then boot the Linuxes with XP. In this case you would have a standard MBR for XP.

Please don't take anything I wrote as specific advice, rather as conversation and hopefully food for thought.

[giac_fab]

I don't want to re-install winzoz ( a lot of time only for OS, all the drivers, programs, configuration ..... I love puppy also for the easy installation)

I think that using for the first winzoz only grub and for second winzoz grub+boot.ini it is possible to boot all ..... but I don't know how-to (an argoment attachment to grub line ???)

[Bruce B]

I don't want to re-install winzoz ( a lot of time only for OS, all the drivers, programs, configuration ..... I love puppy also for the easy installation)

I think that using for the first winzoz only grub and for second winzoz grub+boot.ini it is possible to boot all ..... but I don't know how-to (an argoment attachment to grub line ???)

I'm sorry I didn't reply - I missed it. Here's howto:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 7d5636d6a2

[Gn2]

If it's an extended partition, then hdb3 would be a logical partition as opposed to a primary partition

> Logical partitions start @ 5 - regardless of number of allowed primaries used.

Up to four Primary partitions or any combo that includes ONE only extended partition.

Grub manual:

Error Msg 18 :
Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS
This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area.
This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle
(512MB for (E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB in general)

.

[giac_fab]

Very Good Gn2 .....

So .... How to boot it by grub ?

[Gn2]

If loadlin finds that partition ok -and XP can boot from there - it would work.

Most boot managers allow dual or multi boots, from different partitions or drives/devices
Please see the GRUB Manual <>( How-to & syntax)

OR MICROSOFT -XP

[rcrsn51]

The 8 GB maximum that Gn2 quotes above is usually associated with older drives that used CHS (cylinder-head-sector) addressing. However modern drives use LBA (logical block addressing) which should let GRUB access the entire drive. I noticed that the first partition in your hdb is not flagged LBA. I wonder what would happen it you flagged it using Gparted.

[Gn2]

My pc is an athlon 2600 , not very old .....

"It" may be any failed O/System initiate data, E.G.
Non-contiguous reads -
BIOS inaccessible portions
Bad sectors
Incorrect formatted boundaries

When req'd - (OLD BIOS limitation to a boot sector beyond the 1024 cyl):
It is usually noted in Docs to use "linear" or "LBA" -by adding appropriate line to loader.

[giac_fab]

Ok .... it's too difficult for my ..... now I choose the first windows by grub and after with boot.ini I can load also the second windows..... It's longer but it work

[Bruce B]

giac_fab,

I dropped out after you saying you didn't want to reinstall Windows. I really understand. There are ways of keeping your install and moving it around without reinstall, but that's another discussion.

I'm wondering if you have the problem solved. If so, can you mark the topic header as solved?

My main reason for writing is, I was thinking even if your GRUB mapping instructions were correct it could have been part of the problem. If everything is working properly, I won't go into the theories I have. But if not working right, please let me know.

Bruce

[giac_fab]

Bruce L

I tried to find a way on internet to boot all with grub ..... I'm not able to do it

I tried the way on your link .... My pc told me that the floppy was not bootable (????) .....

I have grub that start before my boot.ini, also if, by bios I change the boot order of my two disks ; I don't know how to take away grub ..... (so your way don't help me also if it will works)

I'm very confused so I decided to stay with my old configuration

[Bruce B]

Bruce L

I tried to find a way on internet to boot all with grub ..... I'm not able to do it

I tried the way on your link .... My pc told me that the floppy was not bootable (????) .....

I'll check into that one. I don't think the floppy is bootable per se, but I'll look into it any. It's supposed to be run with A: as first boot device and a bootable CD ROM inserted in CD-ROM drive. Its for those BIOSes that don't have a CD-ROM boot option, but works with all computers I've encountered.

have grub that start before my boot.ini, also if, by bios I change the boot order of my two disks ; I don't know how to take away grub ..... (so your way don't help me also if it will works)

If you have the XP disc, which I think you do, you are supposed to be able to remove it [grub] by booting the CD, enter the recovery mode, when asked if you want to install windows (press r), then type fixmbr from the recovery console.

Also, I read where people claim to have fixed (removed GRUB) from the MBR on XP with Windows 98 recovery floppy - command is fdisk /mbr

I'm very confused so I decided to stay with my old configuration

I can sure respect that