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Hi, |
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VMWare is working so well on my new desktop machine that I'm |
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finally progressing toward getting my laptop to dual boot. Gentoo is |
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completely installed and ready to go but I've not yet installed |
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grub/grub-static. |
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|
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What I'd like to understand is what's the best way for me to set up |
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grub-static on this machine so as to be VERY sure I won't stop Windows |
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Vista from dual booting. I want to remove Vista later in favor of |
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possibly XP running in XPWare, but for now I NEED Vista to absolutely |
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work for the next few days until I prove VMWare works on this machine. |
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|
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As is typical for these sorts of things the disk partitions look a |
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bit confused bet they make historical sense. The disk shipped with two |
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partitions - sda1 & sda2. sda1 is the Vista installation, and it |
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covered the whole drive except for the last 7GB which is a restore |
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partition that you can run if the main install gets hosed. I shrunk |
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the Vista partition on BOTH the front and back sides to make room for |
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Gentoo. Now I have this: |
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|
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sda3 - 100MB primary ext2 partition at start of drive. Empty and can |
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be used for boot. |
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sda1 - Vista |
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sda4 - extended partition residing between sda1 & sda2 |
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sda5 - logical - swap |
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sda6 - logical - ext3 - LABEL=myroot - main Gentoo install is done |
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sda7 - FAT32 - empty and can be deleted |
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sda8 - logical - ext2 - empty and can be used for boot |
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sda2 - rescue partition |
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|
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Now, I want to go slow at this and try to understand it because the |
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other machine I just built didn't boot Windows after I installed grub |
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and I cannot have that happen this time if at all possible. |
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|
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So: |
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1) Is this layout acceptable or should I move anything around before |
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installing grub-static. |
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|
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2) Would it be better to use the Primary sda3 or the logical sda8 for |
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the boot partition? Or does it not matter? |
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|
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3) When I get around to actually installing grub is it going to go on |
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a partition or in the MBR? I think it should go on the boot partition |
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but I'm unclear how the system then finds grub to execute grub.conf |
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and eventually get to Windows. |
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|
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Thanks, |
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Mark |
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|
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|
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livecd ~ # fdisk /dev/sda |
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|
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The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 9729. |
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There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024, |
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and could in certain setups cause problems with: |
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1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO) |
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2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs |
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(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK) |
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|
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Command (m for help): p |
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|
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Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes |
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255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders |
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Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes |
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Disk identifier: 0x6d56ef53 |
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|
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Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System |
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/dev/sda1 * 14 5112 40957717+ 7 HPFS/NTFS |
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/dev/sda2 8874 9729 6875820 7 HPFS/NTFS |
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/dev/sda3 1 13 104391 83 Linux |
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/dev/sda4 5113 8873 30210232+ 5 Extended |
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/dev/sda5 5113 5367 2048256 82 Linux swap / Solaris |
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/dev/sda6 5368 8548 25551351 83 Linux |
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/dev/sda7 8555 8873 2562336 b W95 FAT32 |
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/dev/sda8 8549 8554 48163+ 83 Linux |
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|
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Partition table entries are not in disk order |
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Command (m for help): |
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