[Unnicknamed]

Hello

Well I got a problem dual booting Windows XP Pro and RH9.

I'm using LILO.

Everything is all right with Linux but when I'm trying to boot with XP it says in a blue screen:

"The session manager inicialization system process terminanted unexpectedly"

Thanks in Advance

[danleff]

A couple of things that I can think of. Did you happen to install Win XP after RedHat and then try to recover lilo afterwards?

Did you happen to change the order of the partitions to make room for RedHat atthe beginning of the drive?

Is this a Dell or Gateway system with the hidden recovery partition and Win XP was pre-installed??

[Unnicknamed]

Nop, this is not a Dell or Gateway system.

I had Win XP installed, and then partition my disk with PartitionMagic.

hda1 FAT32 Winxp
hda2 EXT3 Linux /
hda4 SWAP
hda5 FAT32


I set the active partiton to EXT3 thus I be able to install RH. Then, I configure my LILO like this:

prompt
timeout=50
default=2.4.20-31.9
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
lba32

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-31.9
label=2.4.20-31.9
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-31.9.img
read-only
append="hdb=ide-scsi root=LABEL=/"

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8
label=linux.bak
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
optional
label=hda1

other=/dev/hda5
optional
label=hda5

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-31.9
label=linux
append="hdb=ide-scsi root=LABEL=/"
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-31.9.img

[paultazzyman]

I'm not sure whether this will help - but:-

1. Do you see an option "other" when you boot ??

I use grub, but I think ( about 60% certainty ) that the .conf file should be the same and my grub.conf has an entry:-

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

I would suggest that a google search but this may help:-

http://forums.devshed.com/archive/t-157222

Good Luck !!

[Unnicknamed]

That didn't work on LILO

[danleff]

Actually, what you should see as a choice for XP is hda1.

I believe that the error that was made is making the RedHat partition active. The active partition should always be the boot partition, in your case, hda1. I'm a little rusty on lilo, but don't use the grub commands, as the syntax is a little different. Let me look at this and see what the best solution might be.

Do you have PartitionMagic boot/rescue disks on hand?

[Unnicknamed]

Oh my!

I made them but the second disc failed to boot!

And I guess that making the partition active and unhide it should work!

[danleff]

What sort of error(s) are you getting with the PartitionMagic boot disks?

With lilo, how are you modifying lilo? For example, are you running /sbin/lilo after making changes? Don't do that now, if you are not, but I am just trying to see if you are writing the changes to the MBR when you are making alterations to lilo.

[Unnicknamed]

Well I did sbin/lilo when I updated my Kernel. The partion Magic disks says that there's a missing file probably they didn't got written correctly.

[Unnicknamed]

Well Things changed

I reinstall windows again in the partition hda1. (It's ok I didn't have anything important there) So now I'm in Windows. But of course now I can't to boot to Linux.

I use my RH9 cd and I was able to load my system with the Rescue Mode.

So, everything appears to be fine. But know, how I make that my PC asks on what partition i want to boot?

hda1 FAT32 WinXP
hda2 ext LINUX
hda3 swap
hda5 another FAT32 partition

I have Windows XP installed and RH 9 Linux.

[Unnicknamed]

I finally got it.

This is what I did.

Installed Windows on the first partition of your disk.

hda1 Fat32 Windows XP

Partitioned my disk and create EXT3 and SWAP partitions.

hda2 ext3 Linux
hda3 swap Linux Swap

Installed Red Hat 9 with GRUB and install it on the hda2 partition.

Boot on Linux in Rescue Mode and edit my /etc/grub.conf

Quote:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd0,2)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-31.9)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-31.9 ro root=/dev/hda2 hdb=ide-scsi
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.20-31.9.img
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=/dev/hda2 hdb=ide-scsi
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Then I copy boot sector of linux.

Mounting the diskette:

mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

And copying the file:

dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/mnt/floppy/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

Now I boot on Windows, I copy to C: the Linux.bin file of the diskette.

Then I edit the boot.ini file that is on C:

And add at the last:

C:\Linux.bin="Linux"

Save.

And that's all. At least.

[danleff]

Congrats! That was one option I was thinking about, but did not know if you were up for it, using the boot.ini as the Linux bootloader.