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Installing Linux...in a logical partiton

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by chris van

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I have 3 partitions on my hard drive that each contain an OS (NT4, Win98, W2K). The fourth is an extended partiton with 2 logical partitons and is used by all of the OSs.

I would like to install Linux but I do not want to get rid of any of the other OSs right now. I use BootMagic 2.0 (comes with PartitionMagic) to select the OS to boot when I turn on the computer.

I did install Linux (Caldera 2.3) to a logical partiton. It installed successfully and booted into Linux after the install. However, after rebooting the computer I can not boot Linux. BM allowed me to enable the logical partition but it would not boot.

I am not surprised that this did not work. However, is there any way at all to do this? A boot floppy that transfers control (somehow!?) to the logical partition upon bootup?

I am evaluating VMWare and it works; it's just a bit slow and expensive to buy!

Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

5 replies

by kevin anderson

You've got the right idea.

Install Linux to whatever partition you are after, and create a boot floppy during the install. Then just use the boot floppy to start it up.

Chances are Lilo would be able to get this all working for you instead ofusing BootMagic, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you REALLY know your way around LILO.

Also remember that Linux will install to a specific hard drive. If that hard drive changes later, you'll get all sorts of errors. Hard drives are names HD? where ? equals a-d. a is the master on the primary IDE chain, b is the slave. c is the primary on the secondary IDE chain, and d is the slave.

Otherwise, there is no particular reason that this shouldn't work.

Kev.

by eugen prokopiev

If you want to mess around boot floppies, just create one during Linux installation. You'll be able to boot Linux from partition you want.

If your choose is LILO, try to install it into MBR directly (look through manuals for instructions) - usingthis way I solved the same problem a year ago. As I understood, LILO requires installation into MBR when the partition containing /boot resides in logical partition.

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