Dual Boot windows and linux - use of dd or BOOTPART.EXE

  • Thread starter Thread starter William Hymen
  • Start date Start date
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William Hymen

Thanks in advance-

I sucessfully built a dual boot windows / suse machine
last year, and I am trying to do the same with Suse 10.1.
I can't boot from the windows loader.

I shrunk windows down to 4gig (in a 40 gig drive)
then set it up as:
(windows- 4gig)
/ (8 gig)
swap (2 meg)
/opt (8gig)
/var (8gig)
/fat32 (8gig - remainder)

I selected "no boot loader"
and am using the windows boot loader
pointing to a 512byte file created with
bootpart.exe which is like dd

Any suggestions? Is there a size limit on the
windows partition that I don't know about?
Or am I simply doing the Suse partitions wrong.

Thanks

Bill
 
Thanks in advance-

I sucessfully built a dual boot windows / suse machine
last year, and I am trying to do the same with Suse 10.1.
I can't boot from the windows loader.

I shrunk windows down to 4gig (in a 40 gig drive)
then set it up as:
(windows- 4gig)
/ (8 gig)
swap (2 meg)
/opt (8gig)
/var (8gig)
/fat32 (8gig - remainder)

I selected "no boot loader" --------------^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
and am using the windows boot loader
pointing to a 512byte file created with bootpart.exe which is like dd

Any suggestions? Is there a size limit on the windows partition that I
don't know about?
Click to expand...

Here are the only rules about booting Windows that I know about:
1. Windows system partition must be a primary partition, probably
partition 1.
2. Windows NT won't boot using its standard loader if the partition
exceeds 4G (I think). Windows 2k's and XP's loaders don't have any
limitations that I know about (booting windows itself).
Or am I simply doing the Suse partitions wrong.

Thanks

Bill
Click to expand...
Note: comments inline.

The language describing dual boot systems is ambiguous. Your description
does not make clear what is working and what is not. Please, clarify using
this table (also, correct any bad assumptions):

Partition Used for Size Boots Comments
--------- ----------- ---- ----- -----------------------------
MBR boot loader 512b Using Windows
1 Windows 4G ? Windows likes to be on part 1
2 Suse (/) 8G ? Filesystem is ?


I usually install grub's loader at the MBR and let it control the boot.
But you want to use the Windows loader; therefore, this page has the
necessary information:
http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html

Guessing going forward...
I assume you can boot windows, right?
I think your problem is you can't boot Suse 10.1 because you haven't
installed any bootloader, on its boot _partition_. It appears /boot
is on hda2, right?

There also is a caveat using grub installed on the partition with
advanced journaling filesystems. What filesystem is installed on Suse's
boot partition (please, enter in above table).
 
You have to have a boot loader such as LILO or GRUB installed on one of
your linux partitions (probably / is best). Windows uses "chain loading" to
pass off to another boot loader. You can not boot linux directly from
NTLDR.

Here is what you should do.

Boot into your linux installation from a floppy disk. (if you can't do this
you can creat grub floppies by following the directions at
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Creating-a-GRUB-boot-floppy)

Run grub from the command line.

You will see a Grub> prompt.

Type the following commands:
root (hd0,1) //this assumes your / partition is on the first hard drive
"hd0" and is the second partition "1")
setup (hd0,1) //this installs grub on the boot sector of the / partition
(not the MBR of the disk)
quit

Then you can use bootpart to copy the first 512 bytes of this partition to
Windows to initiate the chain loading.
 
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