Boot loader.

[Bushtree]

Ok guys i have a problem. I have a 40GB harddrive with has windows XP and Mandarake 9.1 installed on. So i use a boot loader to chose if i want mandrake or windows.

well i also have Red HAt 9 on a seperate 6GB HDD. so i am trying to setup the boot loader to make it be able to boot into red hat also.


I have tried both Lilo and Grub to get this to work but no luck.


I have it so i can pick red hat and then it starts to load RH but then it says FAILED when it tries to load something from the HDD.

do i have a setting wrong?

as of right now the only way from me to boot into red hat is to uphook my hdd with windows/mandrake and hook the 6GB hdd up as my primary,

[kilgoretrout]

I can tell you how to do it from mandrake using lilo. Post your /etc/lilo.conf file and tell me what partition redhat is on(hdxx). Basically, you have to access the vmlinuz and initrd for redhat located in redhat's /boot directory through mandrake and edit lilo.conf to create the new entry. Post the above and I'll walk you through it. If you have made a redhat boot floppy, it's even easier since you can get those files off the floppy.

[Bushtree]

Ok Red Hat is on hdb2 i belive.

here is how my lilo.conf file reads:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="windows"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=200
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="quiet devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off"
vga=791
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8
label="RedHat"
root=/dev/hdb2
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img
append="quiet devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off"
vga=791
read-only



ok now how do i do this? \

PS: i do not have boot disks.

[kilgoretrout]

In mandrake from the start menu go to applications>File Tools>file Manager-Super User Mode. enter the root password when prompted. Konqueror will open with root priveleges; hit F9 to get the usual navigation panel on the left. Navigate to your /boot directory and create a new directory there and name it redhat. Next, you have to copy the vmlinuz and initrd.img from your redhat /boot directory to your mandrake /boot/redhat directory. I assume that mandrake did not automatically set up a mount point and an entry is fstab for the redhat partitions. If it did, navigate to redhat's /boot directory and copy these two files, vmlinuz-2.4.xxx and initrd-2.4.xx.img to the mandrake /boot/redhat directory. The 'xx' refers to the kernel numbers for the redhat kernel which I don't have available but it should be pretty obvious. If you accurately copied the numbers in your Red Hat entry in lilo.conf they would be 2.4.20-8. If you don't know how to set up the mount point and fstab entry to gain access to the redhat partition, post back with the partition name(hdxx) and the filesystem used(ext2, ext3, ect.) as you need to do this in order to get access to these redhat files.
Next, navigate to mandrake /etc and double click on lilo.conf. Lilo.conf will open up in a text editor. The entry for Red Hat should then be edited:

image=/boot/redhat/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 label="RedHat" root=/dev/hdb2 initrd=/boot/redhat/initrd-2.4.20-8.img append="quiet devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off" read-only

After making the above changes in lilo.conf open a console and run the following:

$ su
[enter root password]
# lilo -v

Lilo must be run for the edits to take effect(i.e. be written to the mbr) which is the reason for the above.

That should do it. Next time you reboot, the Red Hat entry should boot you into redhat if everything went OK. The trick is just getting redhat's boot info(vmlinuz, initrd.img and location of the root partition) where mandrake's lilo can access it.
Hope this is reasonably clear. Post back if it's not.

[Bushtree]

Ok well when i try to make the Directory in /boot it says:

Access denied to /bbot/RedHat

it wont let me make a directory

also when i opened the file managaer like you said it never asked for my root password.

[Bushtree]

ok i was able to figure out a differnt way to make the directy useing comands


cd /boot
mkdir RedHat

in the console.


but i am confused as what to do next.

[kilgoretrout]

It should have opened konqueror in super user mode. You probably don't have access to the redhat partition either I'm guessing. Try this. Open a console and run:

$ su
[enter root password]
# mkdir /mnt/redhat
#mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb2 /mnt/redhat
#ls /mnt/redhat

You should see the contents of your redhat root partition(hdb2). This assumes red hat is using the ext3 file system which is its default.
Next run this:

# konqueror

That should open konqueror with root privileges. Note, the above assumes your running from mandrake, not redhat. Also note, linux is case sensitive. You created the directory RedHat not redhat which is ok but you will have to change lilo.conf edit accordingly(/boot/RedHat/[file name])
When konqueror opens, hit F9 and navigate to /mnt/redhat and you will see the redhat partition. Go to /mnt/redhat/boot and copy the files like I described above to /boot/RedHat in mandrake, edit lilo.conf and run lilo all as described above.

[Bushtree]

Ok thank you i will try this as soon as i get home from work.

[kilgoretrout]

Good luck. The only thing I can add is when you run lilo -v open a new console and run it there. The one you open konqueror with as root will give some goofy, but harmless error messages when you close konqueror which will just confuse you. Basically, it's just a kde quirk. If you get error messages when you run lilo -v note them and redit lilo.conf by puting a # sign in front of every line in the Red Hat entry. This comments out those lines so they have no effect and then rerun lilo -v to make sure your lilo.conf is OK. Post back any errors you encounter.

[Bushtree]

I tried and still cant figure it out, i do the commands and it opens a konquer windows with root but it only has a detrax or somthing like that and tmp folders. so i cant navigate to mnt/redhat

[kilgoretrout]

Your view is set to open in the Home directory, which is /root when your running as root. The terminology is confusing because this is different than the root directory tree which is "/". To get the proper view, open konqueror per the above. Note the far left side of the konqueror window; you'll see a series of icons in a column with a little wrench on top, then a star, then a clock, etc. Go down to the red folder icon and tick it. This will give you the Root Directry tree vew on the left and allow you to navigate the full directory tree.

[Bushtree]

OK this time everything worked i navagted to the Boot folder, but when i got there there were no files inside that foler

[kilgoretrout]

Did you mount the redhat partition before you tried to navigate to redhat's /boot directory. There has to be something there or redhat wouldn't boot at all. Before trying to use konqueror, run the following in a console to mount the redhat partition:

$ su
[enter root password]
# mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb2 /mnt/[mount point]