I am about to attempt to install gentoo onto a computer that
has WindowsXP installed already. I have been reading the
installation manual and have this question. When setting up
the gentoo partition do I need to mark it as active?

I have two hard drives on my system and intend to install
gentoo on the second. I do not wish to make XP unbootable.

Regards
Chris Saunders

Chris Saunders enlightened us with:
> I am about to attempt to install gentoo onto a computer that has
> WindowsXP installed already. [...] When setting up the gentoo
> partition do I need to mark it as active?

Only if you keep using Microsoft's MBR. I suggest against that - just
use LILO on your MBR and use that to boot both OSes.

Sybren
--
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?

Dnia 20.12.2004 Sybren Stuvel <sybrenUSE@YOURthirdtower.com.imagination> napisa³/a:
> Chris Saunders enlightened us with:
>> I am about to attempt to install gentoo onto a computer that has
>> WindowsXP installed already. [...] When setting up the gentoo
>> partition do I need to mark it as active?
>
> Only if you keep using Microsoft's MBR. I suggest against that - just
> use LILO on your MBR and use that to boot both OSes.
>
> Sybren
Uncertain thought:
drive with XP - keep Microsoft's MBR
drive with gentoo - lilo (grub) at MBR - set it as primary boot device

This should be ok for XP. And would prevent from losing lilo when
reinstaling XP.
AFIK windows will will always overrite MBR or cry or cry that it can't
install because other os is installed.

I got some ugly configuration:
at /dev/hda (MBR) Microsoft'MBR
at /dev/hda1 i got grub - that one is active the rest is not.

Question : will lilo (grub) work if we delete partition with /boot
directory ?

p.s.
fix me where needed
--
Pozdrawiam
MirMir

aparat2 .ma³pek. wp @kropek@ pl

Chris Saunders wrote:
> I am about to attempt to install gentoo onto a computer that
> has WindowsXP installed already. I have been reading the
> installation manual and have this question. When setting up
> the gentoo partition do I need to mark it as active?
>
> I have two hard drives on my system and intend to install
> gentoo on the second. I do not wish to make XP unbootable.

I also dual boot (but have not really had the need for about 8 months -
with the exception of attempting to troubleshoot a friend's XP
problems). When I run a fdisk on /dev/hda and print out how it's set up,
I get this:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 2349 18868311 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 2350 9729 59279850 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 2350 2610 2096451 b W95 FAT32
/dev/hda6 2611 2619 72261 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 2620 2869 2008093+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda8 2870 7850 40009851 83 Linux
/dev/hda9 7851 9728 15085003+ 83 Linux

In my /boot/grub/grub.conf I have set up this:

default 0
timeout 60
splashimage=(hd0,5)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux 2.4.26-gentoo-r13
root (hd0,5)
kernel (hd0,5)/kernel-2.4.26-gentoo-r13 root=/dev/ram0
real_root=/dev/hda8 init=/linuxrc vga=0x317 splash=verbose
initrd (hd0,5)/initrd-2.4.26-gentoo-r13

title=SUSE Linux Professional 9.1
root (hd0,8)
kernel (hd0,8)/boot/vmlinuz
initrd (hd0,8)/boot/initrd

title=Windows XP
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

In case you're wondering, the /dev/hda5 partition is to transfer file
back and forth from Windows, but these days, all I use it for is a
dumping ground for files...

The setup above allows for booting into WinXP and Gentoo (and also SUSE
which I was trying out for a while).

HTH,

....Ric
--
Send email to Ric using: rdefrance_NO_SPAM_@_NO_SPAM_gmail.com
Just remove both instances of "_NO_SPAM_"
== Do you, uh... Gentoo? Gentoooo-hooo!! ==

MirMir wrote:

> Dnia 20.12.2004 Sybren Stuvel <sybrenUSE@YOURthirdtower.com.imagination>
> napisa?/a:
> I got some ugly configuration:
> at /dev/hda (MBR) Microsoft'MBR
> at /dev/hda1 i got grub - that one is active the rest is not.
>
> Question : will lilo (grub) work if we delete partition with /boot
> directory ?

Grub won't. Lilo might if you run lilo with only "other" entries. Better to
install an ms-like MBR when you've finished with lilo, using lilo -M.