Installing second distro on second harddrive

[Nosher]

I'm currently running Mandriva 2005 LE and am happy with it but I would like to try out some of the other distros.

I have a second 10GB hardrive that I would like to install my "test" distros on.

Being a bit of a newb to all this i'd just like some advice on this before starting as there seem to be lots of threads containing tales of woe of lost mbrs, etc.

Onto the actual question at last - If I attempt to install a second distro to the second hard drive (I'm thinking of Ubuntu at the moment) will the boot loader be automatically configured so I get a menu giving me a choice of which flavor to load or will I need to edit various files to achieve this?

Thanks!

Nosher.

[dylunio]

OKay what I'd do is install ubuntu, but throughout the installation refuse to install a bootloader (this will take you through a few extra windows with great big warnings but it's fine). Once you've installed boot up mandriva and here you'll have to edit your /etc/lilo.conf file to add a stanza for ubuntu, then save it and run /sbin/lilo. If you are unsure about the editing of the file, post it here, with information about which drive and partition ubuntu is on (hd??), and we should be able to help.

[Weedman]

the best thing that i have ever done is put the bootloader for linux (lilo or grub) on my second disk's mbr. Therefore, if something goes wrong with lilo/grub then i can still boot into windows to use linuxforums.

thats just me though. it may or may not apply to you.

[Nosher]

Thanks guys, I'll have a look into this tonight.

Regards

Nosher

[Nosher]

Well, I've some partial success with this.

Refused to install the ubuntu bootloader as suggested and got the aformentioned warning screens. The installation program wanted to reboot the computer but of course it came back up in Mandrake. So it was at this point I looked at lilo.conf file. Suddenly thought why not use the Mandrake boot config utility?

Made what amounted to a copy of the Mandrake stanza and just changed any references to hda to hdb.

Rebooted and got a choice of distros to run, picked ubuntu and it seemed to then carry on with it's installation.

I twas only some time later when a reboot produced loads of error messages that I believe the remainder of the installtion used the Mandrake kernel rather than the linux one. Xserver wouldn't start and the uname command confirmed that the Mandrake kernel was in use.

Decided that I would disconnect the primary drive, reinstall ubuntu and go from there. Will post back when this is complete.

Cheers!

Nosher

[Nosher]

I now have a running copy of ubuntu on the second drive although I did allow it to install a bootloader (Grub). This is now a copy of my lilo.conf file.

# File generated by DrakX/drakboot
# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file

default="linux"
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
keytable=/boot/uk.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda5"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda5 devfs=nomount"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="ubuntu"
root=/dev/hdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5"
read-only

I also tried mounting /dev/hdb1 in fstab but ubuntu still sened to be trying to boot with the Mandrake kernel.

I'm wondering if this is now down to the fact that I have 2 different bootloaders on the two disks. Should I change it so that Mandrake uses Grub?

dylunio, is this question similar to the one you answered for utapez a few months?

Regards

Nosher

[Nosher]

Success!!!!!!!!!

Have installed Grub as Mandrake bootloader but still go a warning about Error 15 file not found.

Checked the menu.st file and changed it from this:

kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-5-386 root=/dev/hda1
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.10-5-386

To this:

kernel (hd1,0)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-5-386 root=/dev/hdb1
initrd (hd1,0)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.10-5-386

and it now works a treat!

Thanks to dylunio as it was your earlier posting that pointed me in the right direction.

Regards

Nosher

[dylunio]

I'm glad that you have it all set up now