Dual Boot Suse / XP (Formatting required?)

KAGY

HI all,
I'm trying to install Suse 10 to dual boot with XP, I have programmes like AutoCAD and SolidWorks that I need to keep in windows
i ran the disk and had no problem with the installers suggestion to repartition up the primary hard-drive but I was worried when I saw the warning "drive will be formatted" or words to that effect.
While everything is backed up, I don't fancy the hassle of re-installing all of the windows software
Is there a way to boot Suse off my secondary HDD which I could devote to the OS

Thanks

NutJob

-Point you bios to boot off the linux hard drive.

-Add your windows drive to grub menu.lst (google it)

-That'll leave ur windows drive completely un-touched

edit:ogh and make sure you dont install to the wrong hdd as linux will overwrite the partitions you tell it to. (i made this mistake with usb drives once and dd images :-( )

KAGY

tried that, but the installer kept trying to install to my SATA drive over the spare P-ATA. I didn't feel confident enough to start creating custom partions etc so I simply pulled the plug on the SATA and let the installer do it's thing.

It's running at the moment so I'll let you what problems I'm having when I put back in the SATA drive

KAGY

Okay, now I have two separate OS's which I can only boot into by changing the boot sequence of the disks in the BIOS.
Grub won't boot into Windows, it says ntldr is missing. Which is strange considering I can boot into it by changing the BIOS! (I have to try the map command another time.)

And secondly, and more importantly, although Suse sees the SATA drive it won't let me view the contents or mount it; says permission is denied, even if I'm in an administor session.
any thoughts on this? I can read from another ntfs partition on the p-ATA disk, the installation didn't format the existing partition after all!

humbert

Are you sure you have grub pointing to the right hdd/partition? ntldr missing really just means it can't find it on the patition is pointing to!

The ntfs question I'm really don't know the answer to. linux can read ntfs partitions but I don't know much about automounting etc.

Have you tried using the mount command

mount -t ntfs /dev/something /somewhere

Edit: I dunno where shades at the top of the post came from

NutJob

Iv a strange feeling you just have ur grub config wrong. Iv been using this method to dual boot.

Problem is i dual boot to a sata raid 0 array for windows so mine is no use to you. Play around with the settings in grub.

Do you have windows partitioned into a few drives as that would explain the ntfs missing bit

KAGY

Just to fill you in on the progress; I know how frustrating it can be to be following a thread just for it to die off without resolution

change to the grub file to read

# new windows with mapping #
title Windows Mapped
    rootnoverify (hd0,0)
    map (hd0) (hd1)
    map (hd1) (hd0)
    savedefault
    makeactive
    chainloader (hd1,0)+1

apparently the windows disk had a problem being a slave!!!
The problem I had with "permission denied" trying to access the old drive was solved when I updated to SuSE 10.2 (with the SATA plugged in). Obviously it corrected whatever file was missing the info.
working fine now, save for the audio and video support:mad:
Talk about a steep learning curve, glad I went with a "friendly" distro