[Sussex] Dual Boot Question 2

[Steve Dobson]

G'Day Gareth

On 23 May 2003 at 12:47 Gareth Ablett wrote:
> Because of hardware failure I am now stuck on one machine. :(

Hardware failure; don't you just love it.

> I have installed the hard-drives of my other machine to my 
> Linux box but haven't booted into windows for about 2 weeks 
> Now and I need to add a line to the lilo config although I'm 
> not quite sure what I need to put and where.

/etc/lilo.conf is the file but I think you'll have a bigger problem.
Firstly your windows disk (just like the Linux ones) is configured
to boot off the primary disk on IDE1.  Unless the disk is there it
won't boot right (for both systems).  It is easier to change the
Linux config 'cos there are probably only two things that need to
be changed:
  /etc/fstab
  the boot loader

The big problem is the windows configuration.  Windows stores 
information about the hardware in the registry and assumes that 
that information is correct on boot.  Linux (and the other 
*nixs) work out that information at boot - so you can change the
hardware a they don't care as long as the basics are still true
(CPU, boot disk and basic busses).

As it happens I was talking to a "real" Window's system admin 
the other day about DR.  He said that if they had to replace a
dead Windows box then it could be done by doing a mini install
of the OS and then a partial recovery form the backup - but if
they recovered just from the backup the machine would never boot
(unless the hardware was identical). 

I must admit that this reflects my own experience back in the days
of Win95 (for games only you understand).  I upgraded the mother-
board, CPU and memory, everything else was the same: Graphics card,
disks, etc was the same.  When I applied power the system would 
boot part way, detect new hardware and bounce itself.  After the
third or forth bounce I powered of and re-installed.

On the same system (hardware duel boot) the Solaris X86 booted 
first time and the only difference I could see was that the 
CD-ROM device was now /dev/cdrom1 not /dev/cdrom0 - I could live
with that.

You might like to consider my hardware duel boot solution.  Get 
yourself a double poll switch.  Next solder some wires on to the
master select and slave select pins on the disks.  Then wire it
up so that at the flick of a switch (when powered off) either 
your Linux disk is master or your Windows disk is master.  You
don't get any of the problems of lilo/grub/windows overwriting
the boot sector.  Both system think of themselves as the only
OS when they are up.