Troubleshooters.Com, T.C Linux Library and Grub Grotto Present

Grub Special Boots and Other Tips

Copyright (C) 2005 by Steve Litt, All rights reserved. Material provided as-is, use at your own risk. 



Steve Litt is the author of the Universal Troubleshooting Process Courseware,
which can be presented either by Steve or by your own trainers.

He is also the author of Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist,
Rapid Learning: Secret Weapon of the Successful Technologist, and Samba Unleashed.


Contents

Disclaimer

This document contains a series of exercises accessing, and in some cases overwriting, your boot loader. There's a significant possibility of overwriting your existing boot loader, which can lead to lost time and even lost data. There may be other risks.

You use this document at your own risk. I am not responsible for any damage or injury caused by your use of this document, or caused by errors and/or omissions in this document. If that's not acceptable to you, you may not use this document. By using this document you are accepting this disclaimer.

Disclosure

I'm not a Windows authority. I stopped buying commercial software in 1999, therefore never upgrading Windows past Win98 version 1. My knowledge of Win2K and WinXP is that of an occasional user (at somebody else's office). Therefore, I'll tell you how to set up grub for a Win98/Linux dual boot, but you'll need to extrapolate up to Win2K and WinXP.

Prerequisite

It's absolutely essential you undertand the contents of Grub From the Ground Up before attempting anything on this page!

Making a Linux/Windows 98 Dualboot Grub

This document DOES NOT attempt to tell you how to create a partition for Windows. Creating such a partition on a live Windows machine is dangerous to the preexisting Linux system. There are plenty of ways to do it, but be aware that Linux fdisk and Windows fdisk are not compatible, although I have personally (carefully) used both to create a dual boot.

Once you've installed Windows 98 on a DOS type partition, and the Linux partitions are also still intact, you can begin. Booting the computer will boot Windows 98 because Windows 98's install assumes it's the only operating system worth running, and blows away the former contents of the disk's MBR.

The first step is to insert your grub diskette and reboot. If the grub diskette presents a menu, and you think that menu will boot Linux correctly, by all means chose it. Otherwise press c to get the grub command prompt, and enter the proper commands to boot the Linux installed on your system.

Once booted, assuming Windows is on /dev/hda4, add the following to your /boot/grub/menu.lst:
# Windows
title Windows
map (hd0,0) (hd0,3)
map (hd0,3) (hd0,0)
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
chainloader +1

The first map line maps (hd0,3) to (hd0,0). This is important because Windows can only boot from the first partition, so this command fakes Windows into thinking that the fourth partition is really the first. The second line maps the former first partition to the fourth, presumably to get it out of the way. Note that if the Windows partition is the first partition on the first drive, you can and should eliminate the map commands.

The third line is just like a standard grub root command except that it doesn't attempt to mount /dev/hda4, which would cause all sorts of havoc in Windows. Note that the (hd0,3) is from Grub's perspective -- from Windows' perspective that drive is (hd0,0).

The final line loads the chainloader, which then loads the Windows boot loader on /dev/hda4.



Back to Troubleshooters.Com * Back to Linux Library * Back to Grub Grotto