Linux Dual Boot problem

Rockhound · #1 December 19th, 2005, 02:31 PM

Here's my problem, and I'm hoping one of the resident pro's knows what's wrong. I'm trying to install slackware 10,2 on a second hard drive on my system over here. I drop the cd in the drive, everything goes according to Hoyle until i type cfdisk. For whatever odd reason, it's not recognizing the existence of the second drive so obviously I cant define the partitions or file system or anything. I've even tried changing the hard disk boot order in the bios to no avail.

Slackware has never given me any grief with regard to installation so I'm sure I've pulled a no-brainer somewhere along the way. If it's of any help here's how things are arranged...

Primary master: WD 120GB (windows drive)
Primary slave: Seagate 10GB ( where I'd like to get Linux to reside)
Secondary master: NEC ATAPI dvd-rw
Secondary slave: NEC CD-rom

TIA

**kage** · #2 December 19th, 2005, 09:56 PM

Have you tried using fdisk instead of cfdisk? If your bios is picking up and displaying both hard drives, then fdisk -l should display them...

Rockhound · #3 December 20th, 2005, 02:21 PM

Yes the bios does recognize both drives, and no, fdisk doesnt display it either. Yhe only drive either cfdisk or fdisk is seeing is hda1 which is the 120gig windows drive. As an aside, I tried installing with slack 10.1 as well and got the same result. I know it's a good cd so that should eliminate the possibility of a bad burn with 10.2

**kage** · #4 December 20th, 2005, 04:44 PM

Wow. If you completely unhook the windows hard drive, can slackware see the other hard drive? Are they both jumpered correctly?

Rockhound · #5 January 8th, 2006, 02:10 PM

ok, here's an update on my dual boot woes. I tried your suggestion about completely removing the windows drive and guess what? Slack installed perfectly without any problems whatsoever.

This got me thinking about jumper settings so I checked, rechecked, changed drive positions on the cables, manuslly enabled dma for each, set them to auto, and every other possible configuration I could think of, and it's a complete NO GO with both drives connected.

So the only conclusion I can think of are...
1. there's some sort of glitch in the firmware with the asus A8N-E board. This would be odd because windows recognizes both drives if they're formatted fat32 or ntfs.

2. OEM versions of XP ship with some weird overlay or something that prevents you from installing other operating systems...and honestly, I wouldnt put it past MS for a second to pull a shot like that!

As always, any sort of comments or suggestions are more than welcome to help figure out the problem.

**kage** · #6 January 8th, 2006, 11:10 PM

Its most likely a glitch in the firmware of the motherboard. I've installed dozens of operating systems next to XP before, so I know its nothing to do with XP. (the vista beta is a completely different story....)

You could try upgrading your bios, though, since its working now...no sense in fixing something that isn't broke.

Rockhound · #7 January 13th, 2006, 01:36 PM

so what do you mean vista is a different story?

**kage** · #8 January 13th, 2006, 01:45 PM

Vista has a nasty habit (the current beta) of over-writing certain partitions, which causes data loss. Not a pretty picture to deal with.