Dual booting XP/Vista and Linux without using GRUB.

[AlienDS7]

Ok, here goes: Currently my system is set up with two hard drives as seen in my sig.  XP is loaded on my raptor as my primary OS.  On my 250GB drive I have partitioned 30GB for Vista just to mess around on it.  A few days ago I also partitioned 30GB of the 250GB drive and installed Open SUSE onto that partition.  Those of you who are way more fimiliar to Linux than I am know that Linux uses GRUB to boot multiple OS's.  So my first question: is there a way to boot multiple OS's that includes Linux without using GRUB (using whatever Windows uses)?

Second part: I am going to try out Ubuntu in place of SUSE.  When I had SUSE installed and GRUB was used to choose which OS to boot, if I tried to select one of my Windows OS's, neither would boot.  Is there something I need to specify when creating the partition for Linux in order to be able to boot the Windows OS's correctly as well?  So when I go to install Ubuntu I will already have my two Windows OS boots.  If someone could give me a rough rundown of the steps I should take to get desired results I would appreciate it.  Thanks.

[JQPublic]

When installing Ubuntu you are offered the option of doing it yourself when it comes to partitioning your drives rather than allopwing the installer total control of your disks. Towards the end of the install Grub will display what it thinks in terms of operating systems are on your disk and at this point you can abort the install and exit with your disks unchanged if you do not like what you see. A short link taking you through the install process for more than one operating system http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installing may be worth a look.

[AlienDS7]

Thanks for the reply and link.
In the guide they mention this:
"If you know anything about Grub and have a special situation where you do not want Grub installed to the MBR, click Advanced and specify where you want Grub installed instead. If you don't know what Grub is or what the MBR is, forget Advanced. Advanced is not for you at this time."

So I'm assuming that if you don't install Grub to the MBR it will not be used on boot-up to select which OS to boot?  If you choose not to install it to the MBR, does it matter where you do install it?  Finally, if Grub is not installed to MBR, will the Windows boot-up selection screen still be used?

[Maturin]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/wubi/

This sounds exactly like what you want, except it uses Ubuntu instead of SUSE.

I can verify it works well from XP. Not sure about vista at all though...

[AlienDS7]

Wubi, I've read a little bit about it in some of the other threads.  I went to some sites to check it out and looks pretty cool if I am understanding it correctly.  So with the wubi installation, it installs Ubuntu basically as a Windows application that you can run within the Windows environment?  Meaning you could boot up and log in to Windows and then simultaneously run Ubuntu while logged in to Windows?  I also noticed that the current Wubi version is 7.04...anyone know when the 7.10 version might become available?

[Maturin]

No, it just uses a windows based installer to download and install Ubuntu. So after installing, you can reboot and select "Ubuntu" from the windows loader, just like you would when Dual-booting XP and 2Kpro.

Found another one, called Lubi. If it works, It looks like it can install other flavors of Linux (just be sure to grab the .exe of the one you want). I see the latest from Ubuntu, SUSE and Mandriva there.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lubi/

[Shagbag]

By all means, go ahead and use Wubi or Lubi if that works for you, but to answer your original question: you can use windoze' NTLDR to chainload GRUB or LILO, GAG or any other OSS bootloader but NTLDR does not know how to load anything other than a windoze kernel.  I think what you were really looking for was confirmation that you didn't need to overwrite the existing MBR of your primary boot device (your windoze drive) with GRUB/LILO/etc.  The answer to that query is also yes.  You will need GRUB, LILO or GAG, etc. installed on a device but it doesn't need to reside on the MBR of the primary boot device.  That said, you will always need a bootloader (such as NTLDR) on the MBR of the primary boot device.  Unlike Linux and the BSDs, windoze never asks you where you want to install NTLDR.  It just goes ahead and installs it on the MBR when you install windoze, thereby removing any bootloader you previously had.

If you want to use NTLDR 'to load linux' then you must use NTLDR to chainload GRUB which will then load the linux kernel.  The same is true with using GRUB 'to load windoze' - GRUB meerly chainloads NTLDR which then loads the windoze kernel.  In order to set up NTLDR to chainload GRUB you need to configure the C:\boot.ini file to load an image of the first sector of the partition where your linux distro is installed.  You do this by the following steps:

1.  Install linux to the desired partition.
2.  Install GRUB to the MBR of that partition (not the MBR of the primary boot device).
3.  Make an image of the MBR of the linux partition using the 'dd' command.
4.  Copy that image onto your windoze partition (using ntfs-ng or e-mailing it to your self and logging out of linux/logging in to windoze).
5.  Amend the C:\boot.ini file to give you the option of booting linux.

You can google for the above - there are loads of how-tos out there.  Reading a few will get your confidence up.

One thing I'm not too sure of, though, is if NTLDR will allow you to chainload GRUB when GRUB is installed on a separate (2nd) hard drive.  You may need to mess around with the entries in /boot/grub/menu.lst file to get things working.  IIRC there's a section in the GRUB Manual dealing with this.  In my 3 years of running linux I've never filled more than 40GB of a hard drive so I've never had the need to 'dual boot' with more than one drive.  I'd be interested to see how you go, if you decide to do it.

[AlienDS7]

@Maturin: Thanks for clearing Wubi up for me.  That sounds exactly what I'd be looking for.  My torrent download of Ubuntu 7.10 DVD ISO has finally completed so now I have to decide what to do.  Maybe it would be best for me to use Wubi to at least try out Ubuntu 7.4 to make sure all is peachy before I try to go with the updated version.  Just checked out Lubi a little bit too...you said it has the latest Ubuntu perhaps?  Does that mean 7.10?


@Shagbag: Thanks for explaining the different booting options.  Sounds like quite a bit more work than Wubi (I guess that's the point of Wubi) but nothing I shouldn't be able to handle if I try, so I might have to wait until I'm feeling ambitious.  Man, you're not a big "Windoze" fan are you? Haha.
There are a couple other things maybe you can explain to me about my first Linux attempt with SUSE.  First, can you explain why none of my windows OS's would boot up in Grub?  Would there have been something in the way I installed Linux that would have caused that to happen?
Secondly, to be blunt, trying to get Internet working in SUSE was a real b*tch.  Does Ubuntu (hopefully) simplify that process?

[Shagbag]

can you explain why none of my windows OS's would boot up in Grub?

There could be a variety of reasons for this but it's most likely that your /boot/grub/menu.lst (or does SuSE use /boot/grub/grub.conf?) was not configured correctly.  This from the GRUB Manual might explain things better:

4.2.6 DOS/Windows
GRUB cannot boot DOS or Windows directly, so you must chain-load them (see Chain-loading). However, their boot loaders have some critical deficiencies, so it may not work to just chain-load them. To overcome the problems, GRUB provides you with two helper functions.

If you have installed DOS (or Windows) on a non-first hard disk, you have to use the disk swapping technique, because that OS cannot boot from any disks but the first one. The workaround used in GRUB is the command map (see map), like this:

     grub> map (hd0) (hd1)
     grub> map (hd1) (hd0)

This performs a virtual swap between your first and second hard drive.

Caution: This is effective only if DOS (or Windows) uses BIOS to access the swapped disks. If that OS uses a special driver for the disks, this probably won't work.

Another problem arises if you installed more than one set of DOS/Windows onto one disk, because they could be confused if there are more than one primary partitions for DOS/Windows. Certainly you should avoid doing this, but there is a solution if you do want to do so. Use the partition hiding/unhiding technique.

If GRUB hides a DOS (or Windows) partition (see hide), DOS (or Windows) will ignore the partition. If GRUB unhides a DOS (or Windows) partition (see unhide), DOS (or Windows) will detect the partition. Thus, if you have installed DOS (or Windows) on the first and the second partition of the first hard disk, and you want to boot the copy on the first partition, do the following:

     grub> unhide (hd0,0)
     grub> hide (hd0,1)
     grub> rootnoverify (hd0,0)
     grub> chainloader +1
     grub> makeactive
     grub> boot

Note that you can edit your /etc/grub/menu.lst (grub.conf?) an type in the commands (line by line) specifed to the right of the ' grub> ' prompts.

Would there have been something in the way I installed Linux that would have caused that to happen?

Technically, GRUB is not Linux.  Infact, Linux is just the kernel and openSuSE is a distribution of the linux kernel with a bunch of other applications and utilities (including GRUB).  Undoubtedly the problem arose with the GRUB install and is nothing to do with linux per se.  See the abovecaptioned section of the GRUB Manual as to why it could go wrong.  I'd need to see your /boot/grub/menu.list (grub.conf?) file to give you a definitive answer.

Secondly, to be blunt, trying to get Internet working in SUSE was a real b*tch.  Does Ubuntu (hopefully) simplify that process?

I'm surprised that SuSE was difficult.  Are you connected to a NAT router or a USB Modem?  If the former, does it use DHCP?  Or were you trying to configure wireless?  Ethernet should work "out of the box" on almost any linux distro these days, unless you're NIC is an obscure one which the kernel doesn't recognise.  Try Ubuntu as it comes in LiveCD format which, from memory, openSuSE still doesn't come in (*he scratches his head wondering why*).  You can test your internet connection (in fact, you can test all of your hardware) using the LiveCD without having to install it on your HDD.

Man, you’re not a big “Windoze” fan are you?

I don't really care too much for windoze as an operating system.  It's slow, requires excessive amounts of hardware to run it on, has been riddled with bugs ever since 3.1, gets increasingly slower and slower the more you use it and constrains what you can do with your hardware.  That said, a lot of people are said to 'like' it because it's the only thing they've ever known or tried.  My real beef, however, is with M$ management and their constant use of dirty tricks to stifle innovation in an effort to maintain their (desktop) market dominance.  Only last month did the European Courts condemn M$ for their continued efforts to frustrate interoperability.

[AlienDS7]

Well I got a chance to mess around on the Ubuntu 7.10 live CD today for a while and really enjoyed things quite a bit this time around.  Internet was completely configured and working when the desktop booted up.  Only thing I did notice that was not recognized was my sound card, but I don't think I'd have trouble getting that to work.  I'd really like to be able to boot it along with my XP and Vista boots using the menu that runs for my two windows boots.  I suppose though if I could get my Windows OS's to still boot from Grub that would be fine too.

So, Shagbag, Maturin or anyone else, can someone give me a heads up on things to make sure I do/don't do during installation to get everything working correctly?  I know you posted some things on Grub, Shagbag, but from an inexperienced MBR type of person, do you think you could put it in layman's terms for me?

Also, when installing, will Ubuntu partition everything for me once I select the options or should I create a partition for it before the install?  Last time I used a G-Parted Live CD to partition.  I believe when creating the new partition it asked me to specify whether the partition would be primary or extended...honestly I couldn't tell you which I ended up going with, but which is right?

Sorry if it's a pain to explain some of this, but I guess here's an opportunity to introduce another person to Linux.

[Shagbag]

Can you let us know your hard drive and partition set up, eg. is Vista installed on the first partition of the second drive or the second partition of the second drive?

[AlienDS7]

I have two drives as are seen in my sig.  On the Raptor I have WinXP.  On the second drive I have (currently) two partitions: a 30GB partition for Vista and the rest is dedicated for storage.  I was going to partition another part of the storage for Linux.

However yesterday I happened upon a conversation with my technology coordinator from high school.  I was telling her about this situation and how I was going to create a multiboot system with XP/Vista and Linux.  She told me I should forget about dual boot and look into virtual machines.  I did some research and with virtual machines I could run instances of other OS's inside the OS I mainly use...XP.  She also said that VMs virtualize your system's hardware and it is all shared by each OS (so hardware compatibility may not be an issue).  VMware is the app she recommended (which I now realize I had read about in PC magazine a long while ago) and she also said she might be able to get me a copy.  VM's sound very convenient and really what I'd like to use, rather than having to restart everytime I want to work with a different OS.  Anyone used VM's that could tell me about your experience?

[Shagbag]

VMs are alright but you should know the following facts about them:

1.  Performance is slower than native.
Intel's Vanderbilt and AMD's Pacifica technologies have addressed this somewhat, but there is still some performance lag.  Your E6600 inludes Vanderbilt btw.

2.  Graphics Cards
With virtualisation, the hypervisor provides the graphics driver to the virtualised client OS.  In simple terms what this means is: forget about CompizFusion it will not work on a virtualised client OS.  Basically, nVidia, ATi, etc. don't produce drivers for virtualised machines.  In short virtualisation is no good for 3D.

3.  VMware Player is a free download you can run on windoze.

[AlienDS7]

I was under the impression that VMware player can only run VMs.  If this is the case, is it possible to use Virtual PC 2007 to create VMs and then use VMware Player to run them, or would VMware Player be handcuffed to the specifications of VPC 2007, thereby making it less effective?

I figured that some aspects of performance would take a hit with VMs...especially graphics-related.  Although I don't anticipate doing a lot of graphic-heavy stuff in Linux atm...I only want to try to become more familiar with it and learn how to use it better.  Then maybe once I'm catching on to it more, I can dual boot and take advantage of full performance.

You also mentioned the Vanderbilt technologies of my E6600.  What kind of performance problems would I be likely to encounter due to this?

[Shagbag]

I don't know about Virtual PC images running in VMware Player.  I suspect they can't but I don't know for sure.  There should be no performance hits with the E6600.  In fact, you should see better virtualisation performance with the E6600 than a non-VT Intel CPU.  That said, virtualised images will run 80-90% of 'native' speeds on the E6600.

btw, I did a bit of googling and I think I know how to get dual boot working as you want it (ie. over 2 separate HDDs).

[AlienDS7]

btw, I did a bit of googling and I think I know how to get dual boot working as you want it (ie. over 2 separate HDDs).

Really?  Any links?  Will this be a really complicated process?  I wouldn't call myself a noob when it comes to computers, but at least above average.  I like the idea of conveniency when it comes to VMs...no reboots to run a different OS, however it would be nice to have full performance when I'm working with any of them.  I think my old tech coordinator loved the concept of VMs specifically for what she does, and I can't blame her.  But with what she does she doesn't require the hardware's full performance while there will be times when I'll want it.

I enjoy taking on new challenges (particularly technology-related) and would like to know more about the possible solution you may have found.  Thanks for taking the time to do some research for me.

[Shagbag]

Take a look at this entry on the Gentoo Wiki and ask if you have any questions.

[AlienDS7]

Opened the link but the page that opened up says "There is no text on this page...."  Do you have to be logged in?

[Shagbag]

I can't seem to make the link work.  Just copy and past the WHOLE LiNE into your browser:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Dual_Boot_from_Windows_Bootloader_(NTLDR)_and_why

[AlienDS7]

Thanks for the link Shagbag.  I'm going to try and install Ubuntu as soon as I get the time and hopefully get everything booting up nicely.  I'll be satisfied if I can even get everything booting correctly under GRUB rather than NTLDR.  But as soon as I get a chance to try things out I'll post results and/or questions.  Thanks for all the help so far.

[Shagbag]

No problem.  Just a note: if you want to use NTLDR to chainload GRUB then:

1.  Save GRUB to your linux partition and NOT the MBR.
To do this, at the 'Ready to Install' screen in Ubuntu, click on the 'Advanced' button and a dialog box will pop up asking you where you want to install the boot loader and suggesting (hd0).  '(hd0)' is GRUB notation for the MBR of your boot device, ie. your 1st hard drive (XP).  You want to change it to (hd1,1) which is the 2nd partition of the second drive.  If Ubuntu is installed on the first partition of the 2nd drive you'd use (hd1,0).  If Ubuntu is on the 3rd partition of your 2nd drive it'd be (hd1,2).  You get the idea with GRUB notation

2.  Install GRUB manually with the 'install d' command
As you've installed GRUB on your Ubuntu partition, it won't have overwritten the MBR on your boot drive, ie. when you reboot it'll boot straight into windoze as if nothing has happened - you won't even see an entry for GRUB in NTLDR: just your XP and Vista entries.  What you need to do is reboot using the Ubuntu LiveCD, open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal), and drop into the grub shell by typing 'grub' at the command prompt.  You can always exit out of the grub shell and back into the (normal) bash shell by typing 'quit' while in the grub shell.  Once in the grub shell type 'install d (hd1)'.  This should install the stage1 GRUB file (ie. the all important boot code) to the MBR of your boot drive (thereby overwriting the windoze boot code).  The difference here is that the 'd (hd1)' option tells GRUB that although stage1 is being written to the MBR of the hd0 drive, it needs to look to the other drive (hd1) for the stage1_5 and stage2 GRUB files.  Put simply, it will install GRUB on the MBR of the boot drive (XP) but look to the other drive (where your Ubuntu install is) to load the linux kernel.

*Note: I haven't tried this myself, it's just my understanding of how it's supposed to work*

Once GRUB has been installed, just exit the grub shell, close the terminal window and reboot the machine.

IMPORTANT: Don't forget, you can always restore the windoze code to the MBR using your Windoze install CD in 'Rescue' mode and executing the FIX MBR command.

[AlienDS7]

Shagbag, thank you very much for the instructions you provided.  That should help me out greatly.  I'm going to try and give this a shot right now and see what happens.  If I'm unable to finish it this afternoon then I'll get back to this evening and post the results.  Thanks again!

[AlienDS7]

Ok, so things did go very well.  I've lost my storage partition.  Looks like this evening I will be formatting my 250GB drive and starting over with that.  Good thing I backed everything up last night.  

I wonder though if my installation disk might have some issues.  First, when the Ubuntu loading screen comes up, the orange bar moves back and forth for a while then it freezes and all these lines show up as if I was having trouble with my video card.  After a few minutes of waiting though, the Ubuntu LiveCD boots up fine.  When I go to install, I get through each step fine and the partitioning part fine until I hit step 6: the Who are you? step.  In this step all you do is enter information about yourself (name, username, password, comp. name) and when I hit Forward the system hangs.  That loading circle just sits there and acts as if it's loading something.  I also got an error message that said something about a program "Ubiquity" having issues.  I did some research and it looks like this error might happen if the disk image is bad.  Thoughts?

I'm not sure why I would have lost my storage partition either.  During the partition setup in Ubuntu installation, I created new partitions from the storage partition.  After system hang (as mentioned above) I booted my system into GParted with LiveCD and deleted the partitions I created during Ubuntu install.  Oh well though, not a problem, just annoying.

I want to try getting some things working this evening, so let me know if you think I should download a new disk image.  The one I have is an ISO DVD image that I downloaded as a torrent file.

[Shagbag]

Good thing I backed everything up last night.

Well done.  I forgot to mention that this is the first step anyone should take when installing linux to a drive with other partitions.

I wonder though if my installation disk might have some issues.  First, when the Ubuntu loading screen comes up, the orange bar moves back and forth for a while then it freezes and all these lines show up as if I was having trouble with my video card.  After a few minutes of waiting though, the Ubuntu LiveCD boots up fine.  When I go to install, I get through each step fine and the partitioning part fine until I hit step 6: the Who are you? step.  In this step all you do is enter information about yourself (name, username, password, comp. name) and when I hit Forward the system hangs.  That loading circle just sits there and acts as if it's loading something.  I also got an error message that said something about a program "Ubiquity" having issues.  I did some research and it looks like this error might happen if the disk image is bad.  Thoughts?

Did you run an md5sum check on the iso image before you burnt it?  Does the LiveCD boot okay on a different PC?  It could be that Ubuntu 7.10 has issues with your hardware (it happens).  If this is the case, there's not much you can do about it.  You could try the 'alternative' install CD which, I believe, is a text only install (I've never tried it).  Alternatively, you could try a different distro, eg. Kubuntu or Xubuntu and see if they work.  Failing that, try a completely different distro eg. PCLinuxOS 2007 is another good newbie-friendly distro.  Firstly, though, I'd burn another copy (checking the md5sum before doing so).  btw, now that your storage drive is hosed, why not try an easy install first, ie. install Ubuntu to the whole drive, and see if that works.  You can always scrap that install later and restore your data partition + reinstall Ubuntu.  Here's a suggestion: control your boot drive through the BIOS.  That way you can just install Ubuntu to the boot drive without worrying about GRUB and just boot from it whenever you want.  In the short term this may be more rewarding that fiddling around with GRUB.

I'm not sure why I would have lost my storage partition either.  During the partition setup in Ubuntu installation, I created new partitions from the storage partition.  After system hang (as mentioned above) I booted my system into GParted with LiveCD and deleted the partitions I created during Ubuntu install.  Oh well though, not a problem, just annoying.

The chances are your storage partition is still there.  Unless you reformatted it, the only thing that will have changed is the partition table.  In theory, you can change your partition table back to what it was and everything will be as it was.  That's the theory.  In practice you need to know the exact details of where it started and ended and most people don't keep that info.  Of course, if you reformatted any part of it then it's hosed anyway.

I want to try getting some things working this evening, so let me know if you think I should download a new disk image.  The one I have is an ISO DVD image that I downloaded as a torrent file.

Ubuntu will fit on a CD.  I'd recommend you download and burn a few distros, eg. Kubuntu, Xubuntu, PCLinuxOS 2007, Linux Mint, Fedora and openSuSE are a few that come to mind.  At least one of those should work on your hardware if Ubuntu doesn't!

[AlienDS7]

Well, I got everything running correctly.  By mistake I'm using Grub as boot loader because I stupidly forgot to click on advanced right before installation.  If I'm feel ambitious later on maybe I'll reinstall and try to get NTLDR running instead.  Thanks for all your help, Shagbag.  If I have any more questions I'll be sure to post them, which will most likely be the case cause I'm a Linux noob.  Thanks again.