[Sussex] Dual Boot Question 2

[Gareth Ablett]

Hi steve,

Both machines had identical hardware apart from a few little 
extras like and extra 256 ram USB cable for phone etc.

so I should be able to just go for it I hope, 

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Gareth Ablett
Systems Developer

ITP Services Ltd.
http://www.itpserve.co.uk/

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Dobson [mailto:SDobson at manh.com]
> Sent: 23 May 2003 1:06 pm
> To: 'sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk'
> Subject: RE: [Sussex] Dual Boot Question 2
> 
> 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.
> 
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