[gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   Is it possible to put Windows XP an a second drive in a Linux box
and have Windows be happy?

1) I'm pretty sure that grub will have no problems with this, correct?

2) Will Windows be happy if it's the only OS on a non-boot drive?

   I've done lots of dual boot machines before but there were always
Windows on the main drive and System Commander to get me to Linux. I
don't want to use System Commander this time.

Thanks,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[brettholcomb]

Windows doesn't care where it's system files are installed (XP that is) except that I remember it needs a partition on C to put it's boot stuff.like boot.ini.

> 
> From: Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
> Date: 2005/09/05 Mon AM 09:38:39 EDT
> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?
> 
> Hi,
>    Is it possible to put Windows XP an a second drive in a Linux box
> and have Windows be happy?
> 
> 1) I'm pretty sure that grub will have no problems with this, correct?
> 
> 2) Will Windows be happy if it's the only OS on a non-boot drive?
> 
>    I've done lots of dual boot machines before but there were always
> Windows on the main drive and System Commander to get me to Linux. I
> don't want to use System Commander this time.
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark
> 
> -- 
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
> 

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Heinz Sporn]

Am Montag, den 05.09.2005, 06:38 -0700 schrieb Mark Knecht:
> Hi,
>    Is it possible to put Windows XP an a second drive in a Linux box
> and have Windows be happy?

Should work.

> 
> 1) I'm pretty sure that grub will have no problems with this, correct?

Not really since Windows XP will quite likely overwrite the MBR of the
bootable partition. I guess you will have to re-install Grub afterwards.
But I'd say that's harmless.

> 
> 2) Will Windows be happy if it's the only OS on a non-boot drive?

No Windows version that I know of had ever a problem with that.

> 
>    I've done lots of dual boot machines before but there were always
> Windows on the main drive and System Commander to get me to Linux. I
> don't want to use System Commander this time.

What's System Commander? BTW it doesn't make much difference to install
Windows and Linux the "other way round". As long as you install and
correctly configure Grub or Lilo afterwards.

> 
> Thanks,
> Mark
> 
-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Heinz Sporn

SPORN it-freelancing

Mobile:  ++43 (0)699 / 127 827 07
Email:   heinz.sporn@sporn-it.com
         heinz.sporn@utanet.at
Website: http://www.sporn-it.com
Snail:   Steyrer Str. 20
         A-4540 Bad Hall
         Austria / Europe

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Mark Knecht]

Thanks Brett.

I did think that Windows cared where it's boot loader was and that it
had to be the first partition on the drive. Is that not true?

Thanks again,
Mark

On 9/5/05, brettholcomb@bellsouth.net <brettholcomb@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Windows doesn't care where it's system files are installed (XP that is) except that I remember it needs a partition on C to put it's boot stuff.like boot.ini.
> 
> >
> > From: Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
> > Date: 2005/09/05 Mon AM 09:38:39 EDT
> > To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> > Subject: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?
> >
> > Hi,
> >    Is it possible to put Windows XP an a second drive in a Linux box
> > and have Windows be happy?
> >
> > 1) I'm pretty sure that grub will have no problems with this, correct?
> >
> > 2) Will Windows be happy if it's the only OS on a non-boot drive?
> >
> >    I've done lots of dual boot machines before but there were always
> > Windows on the main drive and System Commander to get me to Linux. I
> > don't want to use System Commander this time.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mark
> >
> > --
> > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> >
> >
> 
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
>

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[LostSon]

On Mon, 2005-09-05 at 06:38 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
> Hi,
>    Is it possible to put Windows XP an a second drive in a Linux box
> and have Windows be happy?
> 
> 1) I'm pretty sure that grub will have no problems with this, correct?
> 
> 2) Will Windows be happy if it's the only OS on a non-boot drive?
> 
>    I've done lots of dual boot machines before but there were always
> Windows on the main drive and System Commander to get me to Linux. I
> don't want to use System Commander this time.
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark
> 

 Yes it is quite possible i used to have XP on a second HD as slave and
it worked fine. Grub is quite easy to config so shouldnt be any problems
there at all. Then i discovered hot swap bays. 
-- 
LostSon 

http://www.lostsonsvault.org

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Joe Menola]

On Monday September 5 2005 8:50 am, Mark Knecht wrote:
> Thanks Brett.
>
> I did think that Windows cared where it's boot loader was and that it
> had to be the first partition on the drive. Is that not true?
>
Windows bootloader needs to be on the first nfs/vfat partition on the boot 
drive and that partition must be "active/bootable".
However, if using Grub you don't need Windows bootloader.
ie:
# Windows
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,0) 
chainloader +1

This loads windows on hdb1 partition.

-jm
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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Mark Knecht]

On 9/5/05, Heinz Sporn <heinz.sporn@sporn-it.com> wrote:
> Am Montag, den 05.09.2005, 06:38 -0700 schrieb Mark Knecht:
> > Hi,
> >    Is it possible to put Windows XP an a second drive in a Linux box
> > and have Windows be happy?
> 
> Should work.
> 
> >
> > 1) I'm pretty sure that grub will have no problems with this, correct?
> 
> Not really since Windows XP will quite likely overwrite the MBR of the
> bootable partition. I guess you will have to re-install Grub afterwards.
> But I'd say that's harmless.

This is what I want to avoid.

grub and Gentoo are on /dev/hda
Windows will go on /dev/hdc or /dev/hde

I do not want windows to write anything on /dev/hda

I know the no one here can truly guarantee what Windows will do but
there's little point in me doing this work if it's known to overwrite
my main drive..

> >
> > 2) Will Windows be happy if it's the only OS on a non-boot drive?
> 
> No Windows version that I know of had ever a problem with that.
> 
> >
> >    I've done lots of dual boot machines before but there were always
> > Windows on the main drive and System Commander to get me to Linux. I
> > don't want to use System Commander this time.
> 
> What's System Commander? BTW it doesn't make much difference to install
> Windows and Linux the "other way round". As long as you install and
> correctly configure Grub or Lilo afterwards.

System Commander is a Windows and/or DOS-based bootloader. Nice
program with the ability to resize all partitions on the hard drive so
that you can give more or less space to each OS. Makes it easy to have
multiple copies of windows, as well as Linux when I was gettign
started with Linux. Unfortunately it doesn't work with things like
reiserfs, xfs, etc., and it's required to be loaded in a M$ partition.
Since I don't use Windows too much anymore I don't want to go on using
SC.

http://www.v-com.com/product/System_Commander_Home.html

Thanks!

- Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Heinz Sporn]

Am Montag, den 05.09.2005, 06:50 -0700 schrieb Mark Knecht:
> Thanks Brett.
> 
> I did think that Windows cared where it's boot loader was and that it
> had to be the first partition on the drive. Is that not true?

You don't have to confuse a bootloader with Windows loader modules like
NTLDR or stuff like that. If we're talking harddisk boot a booloader has
to sit on the first sector of the first track (= MBR, master boot
record) on the drive in question. When you boot a PC the last thing a
BIOS does is to read the MBR and execute the code that is supposed to be
a boot loader.

The bootloader then will actually load an OS from a specific partition. 

BTW someone on the list wrote "Windows bootloader needs to be on the
first nfs/vfat partition on the boot drive and that partition must be
"active/bootable"." 

That is not correct since even Windows bootloaders have to follow the
rules. A bootloader sits in the MBR. At boot time (that's when the BIOS
rules) there's no such thing like partitions. 

> 
> Thanks again,
> Mark
> 
> On 9/5/05, brettholcomb@bellsouth.net <brettholcomb@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > Windows doesn't care where it's system files are installed (XP that is) except that I remember it needs a partition on C to put it's boot stuff.like boot.ini.
> > 
> > >
> > > From: Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
> > > Date: 2005/09/05 Mon AM 09:38:39 EDT
> > > To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> > > Subject: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >    Is it possible to put Windows XP an a second drive in a Linux box
> > > and have Windows be happy?
> > >
> > > 1) I'm pretty sure that grub will have no problems with this, correct?
> > >
> > > 2) Will Windows be happy if it's the only OS on a non-boot drive?
> > >
> > >    I've done lots of dual boot machines before but there were always
> > > Windows on the main drive and System Commander to get me to Linux. I
> > > don't want to use System Commander this time.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > --
> > > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> > >
> > >
> > 
> > --
> > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> > 
> >
> 
-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Heinz Sporn

SPORN it-freelancing

Mobile:  ++43 (0)699 / 127 827 07
Email:   heinz.sporn@sporn-it.com
         heinz.sporn@utanet.at
Website: http://www.sporn-it.com
Snail:   Steyrer Str. 20
         A-4540 Bad Hall
         Austria / Europe

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Heinz Sporn]

Am Montag, den 05.09.2005, 07:17 -0700 schrieb Mark Knecht:
> On 9/5/05, Heinz Sporn <heinz.sporn@sporn-it.com> wrote:
> > Am Montag, den 05.09.2005, 06:38 -0700 schrieb Mark Knecht:
> > > Hi,
> > >    Is it possible to put Windows XP an a second drive in a Linux box
> > > and have Windows be happy?
> > 
> > Should work.
> > 
> > >
> > > 1) I'm pretty sure that grub will have no problems with this, correct?
> > 
> > Not really since Windows XP will quite likely overwrite the MBR of the
> > bootable partition. I guess you will have to re-install Grub afterwards.
> > But I'd say that's harmless.
> 
> This is what I want to avoid.
> 
> grub and Gentoo are on /dev/hda
> Windows will go on /dev/hdc or /dev/hde
> 
> I do not want windows to write anything on /dev/hda
> 
> I know the no one here can truly guarantee what Windows will do but
> there's little point in me doing this work if it's known to overwrite
> my main drive..

Maybe I don't understand the problem here. Gentoo is installed, right?
Now you want to install windows, right? Do that. When you're finished
put in you Gentoo LiveCD, chroot to your still existing Linux (Windows
just overwrites the MBR nothing else) and re-run grub with root (hd0,0)
and setup (hd0). Then add a section to grub.conf:

title=Windows 2000
root (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

And you're done. Been there, done that ;-)

> 
> > >
> > > 2) Will Windows be happy if it's the only OS on a non-boot drive?
> > 
> > No Windows version that I know of had ever a problem with that.
> > 
> > >
> > >    I've done lots of dual boot machines before but there were always
> > > Windows on the main drive and System Commander to get me to Linux. I
> > > don't want to use System Commander this time.
> > 
> > What's System Commander? BTW it doesn't make much difference to install
> > Windows and Linux the "other way round". As long as you install and
> > correctly configure Grub or Lilo afterwards.
> 
> System Commander is a Windows and/or DOS-based bootloader. Nice
> program with the ability to resize all partitions on the hard drive so
> that you can give more or less space to each OS. Makes it easy to have
> multiple copies of windows, as well as Linux when I was gettign
> started with Linux. Unfortunately it doesn't work with things like
> reiserfs, xfs, etc., and it's required to be loaded in a M$ partition.
> Since I don't use Windows too much anymore I don't want to go on using
> SC.
> 
> http://www.v-com.com/product/System_Commander_Home.html
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> - Mark
> 
-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Heinz Sporn

SPORN it-freelancing

Mobile:  ++43 (0)699 / 127 827 07
Email:   heinz.sporn@sporn-it.com
         heinz.sporn@utanet.at
Website: http://www.sporn-it.com
Snail:   Steyrer Str. 20
         A-4540 Bad Hall
         Austria / Europe

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 07:17:37 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:

> grub and Gentoo are on /dev/hda
> Windows will go on /dev/hdc or /dev/hde
> 
> I do not want windows to write anything on /dev/hda

It will, because MS assumes you'll be using the windows bootloader.

> I know the no one here can truly guarantee what Windows will do but
> there's little point in me doing this work if it's known to overwrite
> my main drive..

It won't overwrite the drive, just the part of the MBR containing the
bootloader code. You'll just need to run grub from a live CD and do

root (hd0,X)
setup (hd0)

to restore it.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Alex]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 513 bytes --]

On Monday 05 September 2005 13:50, Mark Knecht wrote:
> I did think that Windows cared where it's boot loader was and that it
> had to be the first partition on the drive. Is that not true?

I have the same impression but I've never tried to install wormOS on a second 
hard disk. Either way, if you encounter problems because of that you can 
bypass it by adding the following lines in your grub.conf

map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)

This will (virtually) swap your hard drives.
-- 
Cheers, Alex.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Mark Knecht]

On 9/5/05, Heinz Sporn <heinz.sporn@sporn-it.com> wrote:
> Am Montag, den 05.09.2005, 07:17 -0700 schrieb Mark Knecht:
> > On 9/5/05, Heinz Sporn <heinz.sporn@sporn-it.com> wrote:
> > > Am Montag, den 05.09.2005, 06:38 -0700 schrieb Mark Knecht:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >    Is it possible to put Windows XP an a second drive in a Linux box
> > > > and have Windows be happy?
> > >
> > > Should work.
> > >
> > > >
> > > > 1) I'm pretty sure that grub will have no problems with this, correct?
> > >
> > > Not really since Windows XP will quite likely overwrite the MBR of the
> > > bootable partition. I guess you will have to re-install Grub afterwards.
> > > But I'd say that's harmless.
> >
> > This is what I want to avoid.
> >
> > grub and Gentoo are on /dev/hda
> > Windows will go on /dev/hdc or /dev/hde
> >
> > I do not want windows to write anything on /dev/hda
> >
> > I know the no one here can truly guarantee what Windows will do but
> > there's little point in me doing this work if it's known to overwrite
> > my main drive..
> 
> Maybe I don't understand the problem here. Gentoo is installed, right?
> Now you want to install windows, right? Do that. When you're finished
> put in you Gentoo LiveCD, chroot to your still existing Linux (Windows
> just overwrites the MBR nothing else) and re-run grub with root (hd0,0)
> and setup (hd0). Then add a section to grub.conf:
> 
> title=Windows 2000
> root (hd1,0)
> chainloader +1
> 
> And you're done. Been there, done that ;-)
> 

Hi all,
   First, thanks to all who have answered. The info has been helpful.

   OK, after a bit of work putting in a new power supply I now have my
oldest Gentoo machine set up with 3 disk drives. The second and third
drives used to be in the old Windows machine. All drives are masters
on their own EIDE cables.

Drive 1 - Via chipset - Gentoo
Drive 2 - Promise PCI EIDE ATA-100 cont. - port 1 - GigaStudio audio Files
Drive 3 - Promise PCI EIDE ATA-100 cont. - port 2 - Win XP

Note that I have not actually installed Win XP here. I just took the
drive from the old machine. That machine was a Via chipset and so is
this one. First step would be to see if it works then load Win XP from
scratch if it doesn't. (Or load Win XP anyway...we'll see.)

   All drives are visible to fdisk and hdparm. I am able to mount
/dev/hdi as my kernel does support VFAT but I cannot mount /dev/hdk as
I do not have NTFS support built for this kernel, nor do I want to add
it.

godzilla ~ # hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing cached reads:   1108 MB in  2.00 seconds = 552.70 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   86 MB in  3.06 seconds =  28.12 MB/sec
godzilla ~ #

godzilla ~ # hdparm -tT /dev/hdi
/dev/hdi:
 Timing cached reads:   1120 MB in  2.00 seconds = 558.69 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  138 MB in  3.02 seconds =  45.66 MB/sec
godzilla ~ #

godzilla ~ # hdparm -tT /dev/hdk
/dev/hdk:
 Timing cached reads:   1100 MB in  2.01 seconds = 547.35 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  138 MB in  3.02 seconds =  45.72 MB/sec
godzilla ~ #


godzilla ~ # fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 30.7 GB, 30735581184 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 59554 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1         203      102280+  83  Linux
/dev/hda2           16878       59543    21503002+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda3             204        3251     1536192   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda4            3252       16877     6867504   83  Linux
/dev/hda5           16878       45326    14337855   83  Linux
/dev/hda6           45327       59543     7165084+  83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order
godzilla ~ #

godzilla ~ # fdisk -l /dev/hdi

Disk /dev/hdi: 82.3 GB, 82348277760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdi1               1        6374    51199123+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdi2            6375       10011    29214202+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdi5            6375       10011    29214171    b  W95 FAT32
godzilla ~ #

godzilla ~ # fdisk -l /dev/hdk

Disk /dev/hdk: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdk1   *           1        1912    15358108+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdk2            1913        4462    20482875   17  Hidden HPFS/NTFS
godzilla ~ #


Now, I wanted to try booting the Win XP drive but I hit a road block.
It seems that possibly grub doesn't see any of the drives on the
Promise ATA-100 controller? Is this the case. grub auto-completion
tells me that only hd0 is available. What limits grub to 8 devices?
(My guess is system BIOS but it's just a guess.)

  godzilla ~ # grub
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.

    GNU GRUB  version 0.96  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

 [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB
   lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
   completions of a device/filename. ]

grub> root
  Possible commands are: root rootnoverify

grub> root (hd0,
 Possible partitions are:
   Partition num: 0,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
   Partition num: 2,  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
   Partition num: 3,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
   Partition num: 4,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
   Partition num: 5,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> root (hd1
grub> root (hd2
grub> root (hd3
grub> root (hd4
grub> root (hd5
grub> root (hd6
grub> root (hd7
grub> root (hd8
Error 12: Invalid device requested

grub> root (hd8

Is grub not able to see drives sitting on EDIE controllers sitting on
the PCI bus, or is there some sort of compile time option / patch I
might need?

If not I could reconfigure the internal cables to share the new drive,
at least the Win XP drive, on the chipset cables, but I'd prefer not
to do that it possible.

Thanks in advance for your ideas.

Cheers,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[agl]

Quoting Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>:

> On 9/5/05, Heinz Sporn <heinz.sporn@sporn-it.com> wrote:
> > Am Montag, den 05.09.2005, 07:17 -0700 schrieb Mark Knecht:
> > > On 9/5/05, Heinz Sporn <heinz.sporn@sporn-it.com> wrote:
> > > > Am Montag, den 05.09.2005, 06:38 -0700 schrieb Mark Knecht:
> > > > > Hi,
> > > > >    Is it possible to put Windows XP an a second drive in a Linux box
> > > > > and have Windows be happy?
> > > >
> > > > Should work.
[SNIP A LOT OF STUFF]
...
...
[SNIP A LOT OF STUFF]
> 
> If not I could reconfigure the internal cables to share the new drive,
> at least the Win XP drive, on the chipset cables, but I'd prefer not
> to do that it possible.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your ideas.
> 
> Cheers,
> Mark
> 

Mark,
    I did what you want to do a few days ago and the system works fine. My steps
where as follows:

1) Want Linux disk as hda, Windows as hdb

2) I had the windows disk already installed, like you, needed to install the
linux setup.

3) Being totally paranoid about my ability to get the drive designations
correct, I totally removed the Windows disk and then did the Linux install.
Loaded Grub into the MBR on the hda.

3a) If I had had two empty disks and wanted one linux, one Windows, I would only
place one disk in the machine at a time, do the appropriate OS install, boot it,
make sure it was working before doing anything else.

4) We now have two disks and two OS's. Linux is on hda, Windows on hdb, both of
which have their own bootloaders and can boot in their own right. I followed the
Grub install process as outlined in the Gentoo install manual, setting up the
Grub.conf file as outlined in Chpt 10, listing 3. I tried to reboot, and Linux
came up. I then tried to reboot into windows and nothing happened.

5) Googling revealed that you need to make Windows "think" it is on hda when it
is actually on hdb. I added the two lines, as suggested by Alex:

map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)

to grub.conf so it became:

title=Windows XP
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

saved, rebooted, selected Windows and it started up. Once you know what to do,
it's quite easy, it's the finding out what to do in the first place that is the
problem ;) Some people mention problems about sharing or overwriting MBR's etc,
don;t worry about it, just set everything up so that they can individually boot
then let Grub handle everything. Any problems, bounce me an email

  Regards,
    Andrew

p.s. I'm not sure on the partition on the rootnoverify - read up on that
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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Mark Knecht]

On 9/5/05, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 07:17:37 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
> 
> > grub and Gentoo are on /dev/hda
> > Windows will go on /dev/hdc or /dev/hde
> >
> > I do not want windows to write anything on /dev/hda
> 
> It will, because MS assumes you'll be using the windows bootloader.
> 
> > I know the no one here can truly guarantee what Windows will do but
> > there's little point in me doing this work if it's known to overwrite
> > my main drive..
> 
> It won't overwrite the drive, just the part of the MBR containing the
> bootloader code. You'll just need to run grub from a live CD and do
> 
> root (hd0,X)
> setup (hd0)
> 
> to restore it.
> 
> 
> --
> Neil Bothwick

Hi Neil,
   I'm attempting the new install of Windows but it won't go. I hope
I'm just missing something easy. Thanks in advance.

   My system:

Drive 0: Gentoo
- partition 0 is boot. 100MB
- 30GB 
- grub is on this partition
- The drive has no space left
- All the audio for this box is 400GB of external 1394 drives.

Drive 1: For WinNT
- 80GB
- completely empty

Drive 2: Audio Data
- 80GB
- GigaStudio audio sampler data files

I've told Win XP to put the C: partition on drive 1. It then gives me
the message:

**********
To install Windows XP on the partition you have selected, Setup must
write some start up files to the following disk:

29312 MB Disk 0 at ID 0 on Bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

However this disk does not contain a Windows compatible partition.

To continue installing Windows XP, return to the partition selection
screen and create a Windows compatible partition on the disk above. If
there is no space available, delete and existing partition, and then
create a new one.

To return to the partition selection screen press enter.
**********

Even though it says [MBR] above it won't proceed without creating at
least one partition on drive 0. It appears I cannot install Windows XP
on a second drive without writing 30MB to the boot drive?

Is it possible to safely shrink an ext3 partition on the current drive
0 to make way for this?

The only other thought that comes to mind at this point, assuming I
haven't missed something obvious, is to rearrange the drives in the
box and make drive 1 into drive 0. If I then installed grub on the
Windows drive and fixed up fstab and the contents of grub.conf to
recognize Gentoo on drive 1, would it work?

Thanks,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Mark Knecht]

On 9/5/05, agl@wht.com.au <agl@wht.com.au> wrote:

> to grub.conf so it became:
> 
> title=Windows XP
> map (hd0) (hd1)
> map (hd1) (hd0)
> rootnoverify (hd1,1)
> makeactive
> chainloader +1
> 
> saved, rebooted, selected Windows and it started up. Once you know what to do,
> it's quite easy, it's the finding out what to do in the first place that is the
> problem ;) Some people mention problems about sharing or overwriting MBR's etc,
> don;t worry about it, just set everything up so that they can individually boot
> then let Grub handle everything. Any problems, bounce me an email
> 
>   Regards,
>     Andrew
> 
> p.s. I'm not sure on the partition on the rootnoverify - read up on that
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
> 

Thanks Andrew. The info looks good.

I haven't seen the makeactive command discussed in the area before.
I'll read up on that.

thanks,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1605 bytes --]

On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 19:33:01 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:

> Even though it says [MBR] above it won't proceed without creating at
> least one partition on drive 0. It appears I cannot install Windows XP
> on a second drive without writing 30MB to the boot drive?

Don't you just hate the arrogance of a system that tells you which of
your drives should be used to store your files! :(

> Is it possible to safely shrink an ext3 partition on the current drive
> 0 to make way for this?

You can resize an unmounted partition by running resize2fs to shrink the
filesystem, then delete the partition in cfdisk and recreate it slightly
larger than the new filesystem size and then running resize2fs again. Or
you could just boot from a Knoppix CD and run qtparted.

> The only other thought that comes to mind at this point, assuming I
> haven't missed something obvious, is to rearrange the drives in the
> box and make drive 1 into drive 0. If I then installed grub on the
> Windows drive and fixed up fstab and the contents of grub.conf to
> recognize Gentoo on drive 1, would it work?

This certainly seems the best solution. It saves Windows getting arsey
about drives or having to try to fool it with GRUB map commands. I'd
disconnect the Gentoo drive and install Windows, then replace the Gentoo
drive as slave, boot from a live CD, edit fstab and run grub. windows
should then remain blissfully unaware of your Gentoo installation, which
means it won't try to "fix" it for you at some random later date.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Are you using Windows or is that just an XT?

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RE: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Michael Kintzios]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Neil Bothwick [mailto:neil@digimed.co.uk] 
> Sent: 06 September 2005 08:59
> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?
> 
> 
> On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 19:33:01 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
> 
> > Even though it says [MBR] above it won't proceed without creating at
> > least one partition on drive 0. It appears I cannot install 
> Windows XP
> > on a second drive without writing 30MB to the boot drive?

The easiest solution to this problem is to do as another poster
suggested:  Remove all drives, jumper your WinXP drive as master and
install WinXP on its own.  Then re-arrange and rejumper the drives as
you like, reset the BIOS settings to recognise the new drive sequence,
and finally use fdisk to check that the WinXP partition is set with the
active boot flag 'a', your grub.conf is as per the handbook for
multibooting WinXP and your fstab is adjusted accordingly for the
corresponding Gentoo and WinXP partitions.

With regards to the Grub commands:
The makeactive means just that, make active the current (WinXP in our
case) boot partition.  The rootnoverify tells Grub to not try to read
the M$Windoze proprietary boot code (it can't).  The map command
virtually swaps drives so that WinXP boot loader does not go spastic if
it finds itself on any other drive than /dev/hda and so overcomes the
WinXP inability to boot from any other than the first drive.  Finally
there's the hide/unhide command which will allow multiple M$Windoze OS'
to coexist independently without blending their partition bootloading
files into a mess (the intended M$Windoze multibooting approach).

> > Is it possible to safely shrink an ext3 partition on the 
> current drive
> > 0 to make way for this?
> 
> You can resize an unmounted partition by running resize2fs to 
> shrink the
> filesystem, then delete the partition in cfdisk and recreate 
> it slightly
> larger than the new filesystem size and then running 
> resize2fs again. Or
> you could just boot from a Knoppix CD and run qtparted.
> 
> > The only other thought that comes to mind at this point, assuming I
> > haven't missed something obvious, is to rearrange the drives in the
> > box and make drive 1 into drive 0. If I then installed grub on the
> > Windows drive and fixed up fstab and the contents of grub.conf to
> > recognize Gentoo on drive 1, would it work?
> 
> This certainly seems the best solution. It saves Windows getting arsey
> about drives or having to try to fool it with GRUB map commands. I'd
> disconnect the Gentoo drive and install Windows, then replace 
> the Gentoo
> drive as slave, boot from a live CD, edit fstab and run grub. windows
> should then remain blissfully unaware of your Gentoo 
> installation, which
> means it won't try to "fix" it for you at some random later date.

I doubt that this is necessary.  Either try it with only one drive
connected to the machine as suggest previously, or perhaps try this:

Create your own NTFS partition and mark it as the only active boot
partition on the drive you want it installed, using fdisk or whatever.
Then use the hide command to hide all other OS from the grub menu.  Then
try to install WinXP to see if it will get on with the job.   I am not
sure that this method will work without any problems, because I haven't
tried it out myself.  I suspect that it may still fall over itself when
it detects that the proposed partition is not a primary partition on the
first drive.  Truth is that by the time you changed your grub.conf to
include the hide command, then re-installed Grub, remodified the
grub.conf, etc. you might as well physically swap the drives and
complete the WinXP installation as B Gates intended.

I must reiterate here that every time you change the physical order of
your drives you should reset your BIOS.  This is a good idea even the
BIOS is supposed to do this automatically.  Also, when you finish
installing and before you reboot with Grub may be worth checking that
the grub.map file shows the correct mapping sequence of your devices.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1114 bytes --]

On Tue, 6 Sep 2005 11:06:24 +0100, Michael Kintzios wrote:

> > This certainly seems the best solution. It saves Windows getting arsey
> > about drives or having to try to fool it with GRUB map commands. I'd
> > disconnect the Gentoo drive and install Windows, then replace 
> > the Gentoo
> > drive as slave, boot from a live CD, edit fstab and run grub. windows
> > should then remain blissfully unaware of your Gentoo 
> > installation, which
> > means it won't try to "fix" it for you at some random later date.
> 
> I doubt that this is necessary.  Either try it with only one drive
> connected to the machine as suggest previously, or perhaps try this:

If you're going to start removing and replacing drives, you may as well
alter the jumpers while they're out to that Windows on on hda. That's the
most Windows-friendly approach, which is a good thing when you consider
how hostile Windows can be to its enemies :)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I
can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it."

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RE: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Michael Kintzios]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Neil Bothwick [mailto:neil@digimed.co.uk] 
> Sent: 06 September 2005 12:23
> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?
> 
> 
> On Tue, 6 Sep 2005 11:06:24 +0100, Michael Kintzios wrote:
> 
> > > This certainly seems the best solution. It saves Windows 
> getting arsey
> > > about drives or having to try to fool it with GRUB map 
> commands. I'd
> > > disconnect the Gentoo drive and install Windows, then replace 
> > > the Gentoo
> > > drive as slave, boot from a live CD, edit fstab and run 
> grub. windows
> > > should then remain blissfully unaware of your Gentoo 
> > > installation, which
> > > means it won't try to "fix" it for you at some random later date.
> > 
> > I doubt that this is necessary.  Either try it with only one drive
> > connected to the machine as suggest previously, or perhaps try this:
> 
> If you're going to start removing and replacing drives, you 
> may as well
> alter the jumpers while they're out to that Windows on on 
> hda. That's the
> most Windows-friendly approach, which is a good thing when 
> you consider
> how hostile Windows can be to its enemies :)

You're right, at least as far as preparing the installation of WinXP
goes.  After it gets installed I would rejumper it to a slave and put
the Gentoo drive as a master, assuming of course that Gentoo is the OS
used more often and its speed counts more than that of WinXP.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 467 bytes --]

On Tue, 6 Sep 2005 13:12:33 +0100, Michael Kintzios wrote:

> You're right, at least as far as preparing the installation of WinXP
> goes.  After it gets installed I would rejumper it to a slave and put
> the Gentoo drive as a master, assuming of course that Gentoo is the OS
> used more often and its speed counts more than that of WinXP.

Is there a speed difference between master and slave?


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Top Oxymorons Number 8: Tight slacks

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Mark Knecht]

On 9/6/05, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Sep 2005 13:12:33 +0100, Michael Kintzios wrote:
> 
> > You're right, at least as far as preparing the installation of WinXP
> > goes.  After it gets installed I would rejumper it to a slave and put
> > the Gentoo drive as a master, assuming of course that Gentoo is the OS
> > used more often and its speed counts more than that of WinXP.
> 
> Is there a speed difference between master and slave?
> 

Hi Neil,
   Assuming they are both the same speed drives (UDMA33/66/100/133)
then there is no speed difference from the drive whether it is set as
a master or slave.

   The issue, and it's a small issue, arises when both the master and
slave are needed at the same time. In this case, even if the slave is
in the process of sending a packet across the EIDE cable, the master
can interrupt that packet and send it's own. After the master finishes
the slave has to restart it's transmission which results in lower
perceived bandwidth even though the bit-rate is identical.

   For this reason, in my systems, I place only a single drive on each
cable and every drive is set to be a master. This then allows the
buffering in the EIDE controller in the chipset to buffer the packets
and put them on the PCI bus without any need to resend.

   I'm not sure any of this is measurable without setting up some
pathological test case, but for instance if you were doing a bunch of
compiles and watching a DVD movie at the same time, and assuming your
DVD drive was a slave drive, you might get some artifacts in the
movie.

   Anyway, thanks to all for the ideas yesterday. It appears that as
the day ended, and being tired, I messed up my Gentoo drive somewhere
in the process of shrinking one partition to make way for the Windows
partition. The system no longer booted last night when I went to bed.
Go figure. I didn't think I was even touching the boot partition.
Today I have to restore that and then I'm going to pull all the drives
except the one for XP, install Windows, and see then if I can get grub
to start it up.

   Note that most brain dead part of this Windows installer
(nahh...it's all brain dead) was that while the XP install requires
that I have at least one 30MB windows-compatible partition on the
primary drive, and while it will create the partition for me, it will
not format the partition and is therefore cannot continue with the
install. (An unformatted, free partition is not 'Windows compatible'!)
How's that for forward thinking? This is Windows XP, not Windows 98.
Dual boot has been around for years but they still cannot handle what
they need for their own operation in that environment. Amazing...

Cheers all,
Mark

Cheers,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] Windows on a second drive?

[Chris Cox]

On Monday 05 September 2005 08:38 am, Mark Knecht wrote:
> Hi,
>    Is it possible to put Windows XP an a second drive in a Linux box
> and have Windows be happy?
>
> 1) I'm pretty sure that grub will have no problems with this, correct?
>
> 2) Will Windows be happy if it's the only OS on a non-boot drive?
>
>    I've done lots of dual boot machines before but there were always
> Windows on the main drive and System Commander to get me to Linux. I
> don't want to use System Commander this time.
>
> Thanks,
> Mark

I restored a saved Windows 2000 (Partimage) image onto /dev/hdb1 then added 
the following to my grub.conf:

title Windows 2k
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

I also found out that it didn't really like my LVM2 drives. It created drives 
all the way up to P: which really made no sense to me,  so I went into 
Windows control panel / system and disabled two of my other hard 
drives /dev/hda and /dev/hdf..then on My Computer it only sees the drives I 
want it to see.  

Oh, I only put windows on so I could play the Doom 3 demo since I couldn't get 
the one in portage to work.

-- 
Chris
Linux 2.6.13-gentoo i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 
 05:12:53 up 25 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.58, 0.43, 0.35
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