> >My system is homemade with an Athlon 600, 17GB Maxtor HD (C:),
> 15GB Maxtor
> >HD (D:), 30 GB WD HD (on a SIIG IDE card), CD-ROM and a TEAC burner. ATI
> >Rage Fury and SB Live. 320 Mb RAM. Running Me primarily.
>
> >I cleared off my D: drive for Redhat 7.1, no LILO - boot disk instead.
> When
> >I did this the first time, I couldn't boot into Windows (BSOD, Windows
> >Protection Error, restart computer). Couldn't go into safe mode, but
> >startup disk would get me to command prompt. I ended up reinstalling Me
> >which fixed whatever was wrong, and bagged Linux on D:.
>
> >So, this time, I unplugged my C: drive and reinstalled Redhat
> 7.1 on my D:
> >drive. Went fine except for email and news (topic for another
> message). I
> >booted from floppy a couple of times and worked fine. I plugged my C:
> drive
> >back in booted up. Same thing -- BSOD, same message as above. Don't
> >understand this at all. I powered down and booted into Linux to make
> >sure -- no problem. I unplugged D: drive (Linux) and booted up.
> Went into
> >safe mode, restarted and Me booted back up. I don't see physically
> >connecting/disconnecting drives as a viable "dual-boot" system. Any
> >help/thoughts/solutions are welcome.
>
>
> Okay. Been there done that. Got my fingers burnt. And learnt my lesson.
> What is happening basically, is that Red Hat is over-writing your MBR
> (master boor record). What this is, is basically is the first section of
> your hard drive (usually your primary master) that stores boot
> information.
> What this does is after your PC has POSTed (Power On Self Tested) and gone
> through all the hardware (or whatever it does) it hands over to the hard
> drive (actually the software) which must then start the operating system.
> The OS basically pulls itself up - literally - by its BOOTstring, which is
> where you boot from. I am really paraphrasing this from an
> article I read on
> www.pcnineoneone.com. I may have also read a similar article
> while searching
> on www.askjeeves.com.
Okay, I follow this, but how could Redhat overwrite the MBR on C: when that
drive isn't connected? Throughout all this, Linux boots up fine from a
floppy, Win Me won't boot if I re-connect D: (redhat drive). I figured this
was what happened the first time, hence disconnecting C: before this
install.
>
> What you need really is some kind of software that will manage the boot
> process. The article above has a few links to some of these boot
> (partition)
> managers. Linux also comes with some sort of boot manager, but I haven't
> figured how to use it yet (Don't need to anymore anyhow).
>
> I have successfully used a shareware program called BootIT. I
> know you could
> use a utility that comes with Partition Magic as well (haven't used it).
>
> BTW way. With this configuration, I've had WINNT, 98, Red Hat and later
> Mandrake Linux on one PC all at once.
I have BootMagic w/ Partition Magic, but I was just planning on using a
floppy to boot into Redhat. I'll try the other way.
>
> BTW. Are you reading Red Hat Linux for Dummies by any chance. I
> didn't like
> their explanation of multi booting either. Perhaps some real person should
> rewrite thier book sommetime.
No, haven't read that one. I was using the Red Hat Linux 7 Bible, which
says nothing about this particular situation, of course :(
>
> Good luck.
Thanks. I'll try it the other way and see what happens.
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