Dual-booting Linux (ext2) and Windows XP (ntfs)

[HearWa]

Here's the general scenerio:

I've given up with lilo after wasting an entire day trying to dual boot the two OS's with it.

I've opted to use the Windows XP boot manager. I have two hard drives. Primary master has Windows XP on it, primary slave has Slackware Linux 9.0 on it.

So... I booted into Linux with my rescue disk and copied the MBR over to a file. This file, called BOOTSECT.LNX, is stored in C: now.

I've edited boot.ini as follows:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=" Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
C:\BOOTSECT.LNX="Slackware Linux"

When I restart my computer the boot manager works flawlessly. That is until I select Linux.

Linux starts up fine. All that garbage magically flows by the screen until Linux kicks me in the balls with kernel panic. What seems to happen is it tries to mount my root file system (ext2) via FAT. It can't grab the superblock.

Any help, or further questions? Thanks.

EDIT: Also note I can boot up my Linux system fine with my boot disk.

[trickster]

Hi,

Have you checked our tutorial on this?

[Stuart]

He must have, he has copied the BOOTSECT.LNX file to his windows partition.

[GhostDawg]

Shouldn't he had ran /sbin/lilo -v somewhere along the line?

[trickster]

[quote author=Stuart link=board=2;threadid=9705;start=0#msg88175 date=1093230008]
He must have, he has copied the BOOTSECT.LNX file to his windows partition.
[/quote]
Maybe. Maybe he got that info from somewhere else.

[Stuart]

I asked him at school today, and he said that the PET here on LJR is what he had used.
Could it have anything to do with the fact that he is using two hard drives?

[rhorn]

When you grab that first 512 bytes off your hdd, you're supposed to grab a copy of LILO, not the MBR. So, reinstall LILO onto the partition that has Linux and make sure it it only boots Linux. Then do "dd if=<linux> of=bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1" and copy that over to your WinXP drive.

Here's what's happening: the Windows bootloader is using that copy of LILO that you made to find where the real Linux MBR is located. If you don't have LILO installed, a copy of the MBR isn't going to help the NTLDR find Linux.

Suggestion: use a floppy to boot Linux and install LILO.

[boblucci]

HearWa--- lilo needs to be installed on the first sector of the root drive NOT IN THE MBR....

Choose the first sector of your root partition. This will be /dev/hda2 if on the same hard drive or /dev/hdb1 if on another drive.
The boot= directive in /etc/lilo.conf tells Lilo where it should place its primary boot loader. In general, you can either specify the master boot record (/dev/hda) or the root partition of your Linux installation (is usually is /dev/hda1 or /dev/hda2).

edit the lilo.conf file and make the boot= read what /dev/h** linux is installed on.