Fedora core 2 dual boot with 2 drives and boot diskette

[monkeypimp]

I am having boot issues with FDC2. First of all I have a promise sata 150 tx2plus controller card that has raptor drive that is my windows drive. I also have a drive on the primary ide as the master. I have installed fedora core 2 on the drive that is hooked to my primary ide cable. I did not install a boot loader. I would like to boot to windows regulary and only boot to Linux when i insert a boot disk. I have two problems with my installation however. FIrst of all I don't know how to make a boot diskette that will allow me to boot my linux installation. My second problem is that my windows installation will not boot if the linux drive is attached to the motherboard. If i unplug the drive it boots no problems. If anyone could help with these two problems it would be appreciated.

This is my first try at linux and I really want to learn but am becoming quickly discouraged.

MP

[Jman]

For one thing, Windows wants to be on the primary master, hda in Linux terms.

A floppy boot disk for Fedora 2 is difficult, as it won't fit. However, you can configure the grub boot loader to make Windows the default. Post your /boot/grub/grub.conf file for the specifics (it's only readable by root).

Here's mine for an example (I have Windows on the primary and Fedora on the slave):

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd1,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb2
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.6.5-1.358)
        root (hd1,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet acpi=on
        initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img
title Windows
        rootnoverify (hd0,1)
        chainloader +1

Notice the Windows entry, it loads the second partition of the first drive.
I would change default=0 to default=1 to boot Windows by default.

See this for more about grub.conf.

[jwt]

I am having a similar problem. I have previously used external SCSI drives with RedHat OS and booted from floppy disks as I do not have the option of dual booting. When I installed FC2 the installer said something about creating a Bootable Diskette just like before in RedHat but then never did anything to create one and of course FC2 failed on the first restart. I tried reinstalling without any improvement. Is there no way to do this type of installation anymore as I can not touch the Windows drive in any way.

[lightismagic]

Maybe it's a little bit of a workaround, but I have a similar system: Windows 2000 on a SATA drive and Fedora Core 2 x86_64 on the first IDE drive. I installed GRUB in the MBR of the IDE drive and installed the GAG boot loader on a floppy. In the BIOS you have to set the boot order to floppy / SATA-drive (or wherever windows is). When the floppy is in the floppy-drive at boot time you can start either linux or windows (if you have both OS configured in GAG), without the floppy windows should start normaly.

[jwt]

Thanks, that sounds like what I need. I found the GAG page on soureceforge so will give that a try when I have a chance.