[Nottingham] Install boot loader on hba - help

[Paul Sladen]

On Fri, 24 Jan 2003, Iain Alexander wrote:

Hi Iain,

> Luckily my bios lets me manually request a boot device at startup so I'd
> like it to boot from the slave drive (hdb1 I believe)

`/dev/hdb1' is the first partition on the slave on the first channel.

  Channel A   /dev/hda - Master
              /dev/hdb - Slave
  Channel B   /dev/hdc - Master
              /dev/hdd - Slave

The partitions on those drives are then numbered 1-N.  I'm guessing you want
to get LILO/GRUB to install the Linux boot-sector on `/dev/hdb' rather than
`/dev/hdb1' (Normally the boot sector would be on `/dev/hda'.)

> So I'd like some tips and advice on how to get the boot loader working
> on my primary slave drive so that I can manually boot from that device
> into linux- as I can't boot linux at the moment, I guess I'll have to do
> it from the command line or the boot disk in rescue mode?

If you've got a CD, or floppy rescue disk with a kernel on, you should be
able to interrupt it at the LILO: prompt and type:

  LILO: linux root=/dev/hdb1 
                        ^^^^--(or where-ever the *root* partition is).

from this point, you should be able to edit `/etc/lilo.conf' (or GRUB) and
ask it to put the boot-sector on the second harddisk (/dev/hdb).

	-Paul

(BTW, if anyone is thinking ``this is hard''.  Try doing it the other way
around and getting Windows to boot off a sector drive...(!)).
-- 
Nottingham, GB