Wow, never thought of switching to boot linux from it's own drive by loading lilo on it and switching the boot flag. Do I really have to switch in the bios if I use two different drives, as technically they have different partition tables and will both be able to be set bootable. At 07:17 PM 11/13/01 -0700, you wrote: >On Tue, 13 Nov 2001, John J. Boyer wrote: > >> I don't want to do anything to the C drive, least of all >> writing in the boot record. I just want the D drive to have a >> complete Linux system. > >Here's the partition table for my so called "C:" drive: >Partitioning info (fdisk -l /dev/hdb): >Disk /dev/hdb: 12 heads, 35 sectors, 989 cylinders >Units = cylinders of 420 * 512 bytes > > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System >/dev/hdb4 1 988 207462+ 6 FAT16 > >This means that windoze is on partition 4 of my hdb (2nd) hard >drive (and in this case, the only partition on that little >drive). So you see, the "C:" designation is just a legacy M$ way >of labeling a partition on your hard drive, an awkward one, if >you ask me. The MBR (Master Boot Record) where a previous poster >told you to put lilo, is a small sector outside any partition on >the first drive, and is not part of any operating system, >including MS-WIN9x,2000, or linux. The MBR is reserved for the >installation of a boot loader: lilo is a far more capable, and >versatile boot loader than the usual M$ junk (note that it is >able to make my second drive appear to be first, when booting >win9x); there are at least three other boot loaders in common use >with linux. > >There are also boot sectors available on each partition, which >can be used, if you make that partition boot active, or tell your >BIOS to boot from that partition (in the case of more recent BIOS >versions). I prefer to put lilo on the boot sector of the linux >root partition, which can be just about anywhere (currently hdc2, >in my case), if the bios will support it, or, if not, another >linux partition, and activate the boot flag for that partition. >That way, ill behaved viral M$ installation software can't make >linux unbootable. All I have to do if MS-Windoze changes the >boot flag, is to change it back to the proper partition. But >that is just a matter of preference. > >> I understand that I can start it with loadlin after my system >> boots to dos in the normal way from the C drive. > >Often newbies do prefer to use loadlin, till they get greater >confidence and understanding, but that has it's drawbacks, >including the fact that the grossly inferior M$ FAT filesystems, >with their characteristic fragmentation problems, can easily lead >to an unbootable system. I suggest you make sure that you you >have at least 2 methods of booting, including a floppy for >emergencies, and that you also learn to use one of the rescue >disk schemes available. > >-- >L. C. Robinson >reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid > >People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and >instability instead. This is award winning "innovation". Find >out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see >"CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Blinux-list@redhat.com >https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list > >