Red Hat

Unix is so frustrating. OK, here's what I mean. I have almost two days of experience here, but every post I've seen so far says to copy 512 bytes. But what's really frustrating me is that in hours of searching the net all I'm finding is questions, and actually some nice suggestions, but nothing is ever completed.

I have no idea what GRUB is or why I should have to install it. Or even how to install it. What does sdb mean? What does hdb2 mean?

CentOS did not find Windows on my system, possibly because I'm installing CentOS on a different drive. I don't understand why I cannot use boot.ini on the first HDD (C: if I may call it that) to direct the hardware to go to the second HDD (E: if I may call it that) and boot from there.

But all I get is a blank screen. What can I do to solve the problem in this way, so that I can use boot.ini to present the OS options, select the one I want, and then boot to C: (XP) or E: (CentOS) as desired?

This is my boot.ini file and I have created boot.lnx and stuck it at C: - I don't understand why it doesn't work, unless perhaps the last line needs to start with multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\ ?

Code:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP with no Crappy Crap" /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="XP with Recovery Crap (Run batch set.txt!)" /cmdcons
C:\boot.lnx="CentOS 5.3 on External Sata Drive Connected via USB"

It's actually 440, but 512 won't hurt in this case. You copy those bytes from the boot disk that you careated through the CentOS process, right?? Then you copied them to the file boot.lnx on C:, right? Still, I doubt this will work because your drive is on USB, and the USB disks are not mapped to device names until later in the boot process. Note: I've never tried booting off USB before.

I didn't create a boot disk, if you mean floppy. I installed CentOS to a second hard disk drive. I then created the boot.lnx file with

Code:

dd if=/dev/sdb1...

which didn't work so I then tried

Code:

dd if=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00...

which also didn't work. The df command revealed both. In both cases I get nothing. When, however, I try to boot directly to the drive using F9 to select the POST boot menu, then at least I get "Missing OS."

Yes, in both cases, I copied the file to C:\. But if the problem is that it's a USB drive, I guess I can fix that by connecting the drive directly. The only reason I have it as a USB drive is that it's a misc. drive I just had sitting around and I connected it with a universal drive adapter to "just see."

I do not know the difference between /dev/sdb1 and /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 - when I did a df they both appeared so I thought I would try both. Possibly one is the HDD with Windows on it, I don't know. All these cryptic abbrevs., I don't know what they mean because I'm used to drive letters and a command prompt that tells me where I am in the file system.

==================================

Update - connecting the drive via SATA instead of USB did the trick. I formatted, connected via SATA, installed, and went from there.

the linux.bin file to create, it turns out, was the one from /dev/sdb1..., not /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00.... I'm not sure if it made a difference because, just as with balancing my checkbook, once you get things working, STOP THERE.

Now, if I only knew how to unload Gnome so I could try KBE, and how to see a context-sensitive prompt, and how to get an underscore cursor instead of a block cursor, and how to get terminal output in white instead of dark blue (on black), and..., and..., and..., and.... Um, well thanks for listening.

Interesting trick ... connect it via SATA vs. USB. I suppose you have a chassis which allows for both.

In a morning-shower epiphany, I was going to suggest connecting your linux drive ONLY when you want to boot into it, and to tell the BIOS to boot off USB before booting off the IDE interface. You got this to work fine, but I add that tip for future comers.

Nah - what I had was an NewerTech® Products universal drive adapter. I could've stuffed the whole kit-n-kaboodle inside the box, but I already have one floppy drive.... {runs away from the screaming mob....}

Svan,

Perhaps Linux is not for you. If you don't want to learn something new, why are you using something you are unfamiliar with? Linux and UNIX are not "Windows but free" they are different tools with different paradigms for doing things.

GRUB is a boot loader and a more effective and powerful one than ntldr is. You CAN boot with ntldr for your needs and here's a link on how:

http://www.astahost.com/info.php/usi...nux_t1510.html (edit for a better link, the one below is not the one I thought it was)

Cool Solutions: Configuring Dual Boot (SUSE Linux, Windows) Systems

You may have to make adjustments as this is for SUSE and you are using Red Hat or a clone of it.


However, you can install grub (and it is recommended that you do so). I would recommend you load it on your first drive and use it to boot both operating systems instead of trying to make Windows, already unfriendly to other systems, boot Linux for you.


As well, you should understand that C: and D: and such are Windows/Dos constructs. In linux, you have no "drives" per se, they are all files. Everything is considered a file in *Nix. Thus, your disk drives are /dev/sda (for serial drive a, including SCSI and SATA/SAS drives). /dev/hda and hdb and hdc and such are PATA/IDE drives. The number after them, when in the OS (Not the boot loader, GRUB) are the partition.

Each drive can contain 4 primary partitions at most, or, you can form the last primary partition into an extended partition, "using up" the last primary partition to create a space to create extended partitions. This way you can usually have ~16 partitions per drive.

This way, /dev/sda is the drive and /dev/sda1 is the first partition (primary)
/dev/sda2 and /dev/sda3 are the 2nd and third partitions. /dev/sda4 would be the last primary, but it is usually not allocated that way and instead becomes a container for extended partitions and you would go directly to /dev/sda5 and so forth.

After you partition, and you should learn about how to do that and why, you need to create a file system (Windows usually has 2-3 options of FAT, FAT32 and NTFS, though a few others are not often used), however Linux can use multiple ones including FAT/VFAT(Fat32 implemented on Linux) and Ext2/3/4, ReiserFS (dead, no pun intended), XFS, JFS, etc etc. They have merits to them all.

Again, if you choose to learn about this, you will have a more pleasant experience using the operating system than if you just choose to butt heads with it and complain about it.

Who said I didn't want to learn something new? What I was complaining about was not the OS but the fact that internet resources about *nix assume a level of sophistication few newbies have. I don't have any complaints about the OS's paradigm but about the instructions I'm finding on the net. Your message is the first one I've seen that explains what sda means, for example. Another example - a four paragraph description of PROMPT_COMMAND that says virtually nothing about it at all.

As a technical writer, I perhaps judge too harshly, especially in terms of people who were kind enough to share their own experiences, and I recognize that. But certainly I'm allowed to blow off steam when I see the same question posted in many places and no real answers.

All I ask is understanding that some of us - especially at first - need to be told, "Approach the light. If it is red, stop before the stop bar. If it is green, proceed through. If it turns yellow while you can still stop safely, then stop. If it turns yellow but you've already crossed the stop bar, or you cannot stop safely, proceed through with caution and watch in your mirror in case the policeman disagrees with your decision. Do not in any case make contact with anything other than the road...."

We were all new once. At work, I am the person who must constantly respond to, "Help, my computer did something," in response to which I try to help my users help themselves. I'm not afraid to learn, or to teach, but, like everyone, I get frustrated too, especially when stuff happens contrary to documentation (like my version of bash seeing no difference between PS1=\W and PS1=\w).

The good news is that I'm now 150 pages further along in Linux for Dummies and - hopefully - getting a little less stoopid all the time.

Thank to everyone for the explanations - they were quite helpful and I am happily booting CentOS using Window's boot.ini to present the OS choices.

---------- Post updated at 05:26 PM ---------- Previous update was at 05:21 PM ----------

Do I have to boot via the CentOS Live CD in order to copy those bytes? Or can I just run dd from a bash prompt while using the system itself?