Duel Boot

**TobyKY76** · 07-05-2007

I am wanting to duel boot a machine with Win XP. I have one hdd with Win XP already installed and running on it, I have a seperate hdd with Freespire 1.0.13 on it up and running. Question is, can I just plug both hdd's in and the grub menu will detect it, or do I need to change something inside Freespire first to detect a duel boot hdd? My Linux skills are minimal, please keep that in mind.

**devils casper** · 07-05-2007

you have to edit menu.lst and device.map files.
plug-in FreeSpire disk as Primary and Windows Disk as Secondary ( slave ).
FreeSpire will boot up on switching on the machine.
open /boot/grub/menu.lst file and add this code at the end of file:

Code:

title Windows XP
    rootnoverify (hd1,0)
    map (hd0) (hd1)
    map (hd1) (hd0)
    chainloader +1

save file and open /boot/grub/device.map file.
add this line

Code:

(hd1)  /dev/hdb

if your harddisks are SATA, replace hdb with sdb.
reboot machine.

*you must have root privileges to edit those files.

in case, it doesn't work, plug-in both disks, execute 'fdisk -l' command and post output here.

**TobyKY76** · 07-05-2007

Will try that tonight when I get home. Thanks for the speedy response. Will post results when I have them.

**the bassinvader** · 07-05-2007

if i may tag onto this one, what do these lines do?

Code:

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

**TobyKY76** · 07-06-2007

Here is the output of fdisk -l

kgreer@Freespire:~$ fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 10.0 GB, 10005037056 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19386 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 19386 9770512+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hdb: 40.0 GB, 40000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4863 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 5 40131 de Dell Utility
/dev/hdb2 * 6 4405 35343000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb3 4406 4862 3670852+ db CP/M / CTOS / ...
kgreer@Freespire:~$

I added the code from DC to my menu.lst and also to device.map. I saved both files and rebooted. The grub menu does not show my Win XP disk as bootable (i.e. no selection to boot to). I re-opened device.map and the added code is no longer there. Do I need to sudo mount before rebooting? If so, how? I forgot the command

.

Here is the menu.lst:

# Generated by jiffyboot version 9.1. If this file is edited, the
# system will stop modifying it. To allow the system to resume
# management of this file, remove it and run /sbin/jiffyboot

default=0
timeout=0
fallback

title hidden
configfile (hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu-normal.lst

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

and device.map:

(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdb

**devils casper** · 07-06-2007

# Generated by jiffyboot version 9.1. If this file is edited, the
# system will stop modifying it. To allow the system to resume
# management of this file, remove it and run /sbin/jiffyboot

FreeSpire is using jiffyboot utility to auto-generate menu.lst file. we have to replace menu-normal.lst file with menu.lst.

post the contents of /boot/grub/menu-normal.lst file.

**devils casper** · 07-06-2007

Originally Posted by the bassinvader

if i may tag onto this one, what do these lines do?

Code:

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

Windows Boot Loader must be installed in the MBR of Primary Harddisk OR Boot Sector of Primary Partition of Primary Harddisk. we are plugging Windows OS' Harddisk as Secondary. Windows OS will complain coz of that and wont boot. mapping code is cheat code. with mapping, Windows Boot Loader assume that its in Primary Harddisk.

**TobyKY76** · 07-09-2007

Originally Posted by devils_casper

FreeSpire is using jiffyboot utility to auto-generate menu.lst file. we have to replace menu-normal.lst file with menu.lst.

post the contents of /boot/grub/menu-normal.lst file.

Sorry for the delay...I was away from computer for the weekend. Here is the menu-normal.lst file:

Code:

# Generated by jiffyboot version 9.1. If this file is edited, the
# system will stop modifying it.  To allow the system to resume
# management of this file, remove it and run /sbin/jiffyboot

# 
default=0
timeout=10
color cyan/green magenta/green
splashimage=/boot/grub/bootsplash.xpm.gz

instructions Use the %c and %c keys to select which entry is highlighted.
timeout_message Entry %d will be booted automatically in %d seconds.

# hda1, boot entry
title Freespire Ver. 1.0.13
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.14-gratis  root=/dev/root rootdev=0x0301 ramdisk=35392 video=vesafb:nomtrr jiffymount=noatime resume2=swap:/dev/hda1:0x44000 vga=0x311 splash=silent
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.14-gratis.gz

# hda1, diagnostic boot entry of /dev/root
title Diagnostics
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.14-gratis noresume2 single Diagnostics splash=0  root=/dev/root rootdev=0x0301 ramdisk=35392 video=vesafb:nomtrr jiffymount=noatime resume2=swap:/dev/hda1:0x44000
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.14-gratis.gz

# hda1, redetect boot entry of /dev/root
title Redetect
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.14-gratis noresume2 redetect splash=0  root=/dev/root rootdev=0x0301 ramdisk=35392 video=vesafb:nomtrr jiffymount=noatime resume2=swap:/dev/hda1:0x44000
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.14-gratis.gz

title Advanced Menu
configfile (hd0,0)/boot/grub/advanced-normal.lst

**devils casper** · 07-09-2007

open menu.lst file and delete all its contents.
paste this

Code:

default=0
timeout=10

color cyan/green magenta/green
splashimage=/boot/grub/bootsplash.xpm.gz

title Freespire Ver. 1.0.13
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.14-gratis root=/dev/hda1 vga=0x311 splash=silent
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.14-gratis.gz

title Windows XP
    rootnoverify (hd1,0)
    map (hd0) (hd1)
    map (hd1) (hd0)
    chainloader +1

save file and reboot.

**TobyKY76** · 07-09-2007

Ok...I replaced the menu.lst with the code that DC suggested. The grub boot loader recognizes the Win XP hdd. But when I select the Windows disk I get this error:

Code:

Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

When I select Freespire hdd I get this error:

Code:

Kernal panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unkown - block (3,1)

Now I can't boot into the freespire disk. Even If I unplug the windows disk and run freespire alone. I am typing this message on the windows disk running as master and freespire disk unplugged. I know something went wrong...wish I knew what it was. Thanks for the help in advance.

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