Red Hat Linux & Installation Issue

[Sadiq_2]

Dear Friend

I have a standalone PC with Win 98 on Primary Partition. I Have Installed Red Hat Linux 7 on other partition. I want that when the machine boots it should prompt me whether to start Windows or Linux. But after booting it directly goes to windows, I have to use a bootable floppy to boot to unix which I want to avoid.

Pleae give some suggetions.

Thank You.

[Kodjo Agbenu]

Hello,

What you need is a boot loader.
The most simple to use is LILO. Here is a sample config (/etc/lilo.conf) :

prompt
timeout=100
default=linux
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8
label=linux
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img
read-only
append="apm=off root=/dev/hda2"

other=/dev/hda1
label=win98


Adapt this to your own config.
WARNING : don't forget to type /sbin/lilo after having created /etc/lilo.conf.

If it doesn't boot, you can reverse changes by booting your rescue floppy, going to the root directory then /sbin/lilo -u

Good luck.

Kodjo

[Matthew Couper]

That's if you are using LILO, I think Red Hat started defaulting to GRUB at 7

What did you install first? Red Hat or Win98? If you installed Win98 second it would of formated the MBR so you would loose the bootloader.

If you use the boot disk and follow the previous instructions you can load LILO in the MBR which will give you the options. If using GRUB, /usr/sbin/grub-install will install GRUB to the MBR

[Zafar A. Mohammed_1]

Sadiq,

When you installed Red Hat, did you choose the option to boot from Linux. If not then simply from the Windows Command prompt,
c:>fdisk
and choose this option
2. Set Active Partition

Choose here Non-Dos Parition as Active.

and then Restart your computer.

Thanks
Zafar