How to install and boot 145 operating systems in a PC

Printable View

Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page

06-03-2009, 11:49 AM
clayg

Logical partitions on USB stick

I've hit a snag in my project. I have an 8Gb USB memory stick and I have one FAT partition of 2GB for shared data and GRUB. Then I have multiple ext2 partitions for loading various Linux distro "Live CDs", utility disks, and some full installs of small distros. I want a fully bootable install of each in its own partition, so that I can use your chainloader scheme to start any of them from one GRUB menu.

The plan is working fine with Puppy Linux in Partition #2 and System Rescue CD in Partition #3. I converted the ISOLINUX from the Live CD to EXTLINUX on the USB partition. These two both work fine with the GRUB chainloader. It is after that where I run into trouble.

Partition #4 is the Extended partition that houses the Logical partitions, #5, #6, #7, #8, etc. When I use the same EXTLINUX method to load a Live CD (Ubuntu, for example) into one of these Logical partitions, it refuses to boot from the GRUB chainloader. I can put a full stanza into GRUB (title, root, kernel, initrd) and they will then boot up just fine. But when I try to use the chainloader, I just get a "Boot error" with no error code or other information.

The reason that I wanted to use the chainloader command is partly for consistency, and partly because on some Live CDs, I have not been able to figure out what to put into the full GRUB stanza to get it to boot correctly. Take Ultimate Boot CD for example, I can't find a description anywhere of what would go into a GRUB menu to start that CD.

It seems like the EXTLINUX should boot from the GRUB chainloader, but it is only working for me in the two Primary Partitions (#2 and #3), not in any of the Logical Partitions. Since you are clearly using the chainloader command to boot from many Logical Partitions on your hard disks, I was hoping that you might be able to give me a clue as to where to look for a solution on my USB stick drive.

Thanks,
06-03-2009, 07:10 PM
saikee

I did not use Extlinux because with Grub I can boot everything manually and find out exactly which step doesn't work.

The author of Extlinux states this boot loader is "light weight". My feeling is if it is similar to syslinux, which boots mainly from a fat partition then it may have some limitations. Extlinux is different to syslinux by able to read an ext2/3 partition. In general a boot loader is a very small program not designed to read every filing system. Grub for example cannot read a NTFS partition. What Grub excels is it can chainload any installed system but that ability is not universal in every boot loader.

Many boot loaders are designed to boot only the primary partitions (the first 4 in a disk) because the code can be a lot simpler as the partition table is inisde the MBR which is only 512 bytes long. To boot a logical partition the hard disk has to be read several times because each logical partition carried the hard disk address of the next logical partition. When I recently putting Xp into 126 logical partition Grub suffered a big delay penalty because it had to spend a significant amount of time just to locate the correct partition.

The success of booting Linux off a USB drive also depends very much on how the distro has been put together. The access time in a USB device is a a lot slower and the kernel may not be able to find the correct system files in time during a boot up, as many files are loaded simultaneously. My point is success is not guaranteed as the case with an internal hard disk based on which the distros have been assembled.
08-09-2009, 01:50 PM
adempewolff

Hello sir,
I use Ubuntu as my main OS and upon my recent upgrade to a larger hard drive have been multibooting Ubuntu 9.04 amd64 with Windows XP and Windows Vista 64-bit. Just today GRUB has started acting up (either not loading, hanging at a white flashing cursor, or waiting up to 3 minutes to load http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7758331 if you are interested). I am afraid I will have to reinstall GRUB.

Your post gives me some much needed confidence. I recognize that GRUB is both powerful and laughably simple but while there are many how-tos for common problems there are not any comprehensive but readable sets of documentation for non-developers who simply seek to better understand their system and the process of debugging it.

I write here to ask about your experience working with loading Vista from GRUB as I am somewhat nervous about reinstalling GRUB without making XP or Vista un-bootable. Currently my set up is

hd1,0 Dell Utility Partition
hd1,1 Windows XP Pro
hd1,2 Windows Vista Business 64 Bit
(I don't know if GRUB counts extended partitions if so add one number to subsequent partitions)
hd1,3 Empty partition for testing OSes
hd1,4 Linux swap
hd1,5 Ubuntu 9.04 amd64
hd1,6 Storage partition

Ubuntu works great and I am pretty comfortable with modifying how GRUB interacts with it. On the other hand for the Windows OSes GRUB points to hd1,1 (Windows XP), where it appears to store the Windows Boot Manager which can then boot into Vista or the XP. Although I suppose I could just leave it there and have the new installation of GRUB continue pointing to that I would kind of like to have GRUB load each OS individually.

Do you have any ideas on how I could remove the Windows Boot Manager but leave both XP and Vista bootable so GRUB could chainload them?

Thanks!
08-10-2009, 06:51 PM
saikee

adempewolff,

I just came back from an overseas trip to post a late reply.

Grub counts from zero. Disk (hd1) is the second hard disk. If you have only one hard disk then it should be (hd0).

The first 4 partitions, from (hd0,0) to (hd0,3), are primaries. If you use logical partitions then one of them must be given up to form an extended partition. A hard disk can have only one extended partition which has no storage of its own. It simply acts as a boundary for a set of logical partitions inside. Any partition starting from (hd0,4) or the 5th position is a logical partition. I suggest you post the terminal output of

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

for us to see if you are not sure. The "sudo fdisk -l" is a Linux command with partitions listed in sda1, sda2 etc. You can get the equivalent in Grub by command

Code:

sudo grub geometry (hd0) quit

You cannot remove the boot manager of a MS Windows because it will not boot. The idea is Grub boots up a Windows boot loader, hands over the control to it and it is the Windows boot loader that actually boots up the MS system.

If you have two MS Windows of Xp and Vista then it is the Vista's bootmgr that controls both Windows because Xp must be booted by its boot loader NTLDR.

The actual working is Grub boots up bootmgr first when you select MS Windows. Inside it bootmgr gives you 2 choices of booting either Vista or Xp. If you choose Vista then bootmgr will fire it up. If you choose Xp then bootmgr will hand over the control to NTLDR which boots up the Xp. Since XP's NTLDR is older it can't boot Vista so the control must be by bootmgr of Vista only. In your case you will find bootmgr and NTLDR residing in the Xp partition. That is the normal way for the MS Windows systems. Both Vista and Xp store their boot loader inside the boot sector of their own partitions. There is no need to interfere with them.

Your information suggests Xp is at the front end so Vista during installation will have deposited its bootmgr in Xp's partition. All you need to do is to tell Grub to chainload that partition. The "sudo fdisk -l" should show up sda2 the Xp partition, by having type 7 for NTFS filing system and the partition being bootable (with a *).

Both Xp and Vista will have their boot loaders residing in the boot sector of their partitions. All you need is to chainload the partition that has bootmgr inside. My guess is these lines should fire up the bootmgr in the Xp partition

Code:

title Xp partition assumed in (hd0,1) root (hd0,1) chainloader +1

You can restore Grub by any Linux Live CD and the Ubuntu CD can be used for that purpose. Post the "sudo fdisk -l" and we can show you the steps.
08-10-2009, 07:11 PM
adempewolff

Thanks for your reply. GRUB ceased acting up after several more reboots. It might have even been the BIOS, who knows. So I do not have an urgent need to reinstall GRUB anymore but I would still like to reconfigure how my computer boots. I also found your thread "Just Booting Tips" which was very informative and answered most of my questions about GRUB.

As soon as I submitted that post I realized it should be hd0 not hd1... oops.

What I was wondering if you had any idea how to do would be to configure xp and vista so they boot independently of eachother. Aka XP boots via NTLDR on its partition (hd0,1 or sda2) and Vista boots via the Windows Boot Manager on its partition (hd0,2 or sda3). The reason I would like to do it this way is because I may want to uninstall one of them in the future and I'd rather not have them dependent on eachother (or eachother's partitions) for booting.

I think I know how I would point to these in GRUB:

Code:

title Windows XP root (hd0,1) chainloader +1 title Windows Vista 64 root )hd0,2) chainloader +1

But I don't know how to configure the windows OSes so that they will boot off their own partitions. So I do not want to remove the windows boot manager but rather move the Vista Boot manager to the Vista partition and then use the native NTLDR to load XP. I think that I might be able to do this by using the windows recovery console and using the commands "fixmbr" and "fixboot" and then reinstalling GRUB and reconfiguring it. I'm not confident that this would work though so I was wondering if anyone had any expirence. Hopefully I am more clear now about what I am curious about.

I don't think you need this anymore but just in case it better helps you visualize my setup:

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00014c2c Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 3 24066 de Dell Utility /dev/sda2 * 4 5225 41945715 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda3 5226 9141 31455270 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda4 9142 30401 170770950 5 Extended /dev/sda5 9142 10446 10482381 83 Linux /dev/sda6 10447 10968 4192933+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda7 10969 13579 20972826 83 Linux /dev/sda8 13580 30401 135122683+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Thanks!
08-11-2009, 09:15 AM
saikee

What you have asked is totally reasonable but incompatible with M$ arrangement.

I have successfully broken off the combined booting process of Xp/Win2k and Vista/Win7 but haven't written about it.

The Xp can be easily fixed. The fixmbr will restore the Xp's own version of MBR in the first sector of the first boot disk. That MBR boots the booting code inside the Xp partition's boot sector. Unfortunately M$ saw fit to use a different boot code for the Vista/Win7 and so your sda2 or (hd0,1) has the boot code from the bootmgr and not from the NTLDR.

By running the recovery console of a XP installation disc the command "fixboot" will restore the Xp boot code inside the Xp partition, by overwriting the Vista/Win7 version currently there. This will make the Vista unbootable.

Moving the bootmgr and the associated files from Xp partition sda2 to Vista partition sda3 does not help because bootmgr configuration file is now in binary and a relocation must be followed by an update. The best way is to hide the Xp partition and run the Vista installation DVD. In place of the Recovery Console Vista's equivalent is Command Prompt. You can run the program BCDedit.exe to restore the Vista's boot code and MBR this way. I believe between bootrec.exe or bootsect.exe you can achieve the same thing. Also the third party software like EasyBCD can also be used if you have another bootable Vista or Win7 partition to run it. Just type "bcdedit.exe /?" to get help and find out the parameters you can use.

Your current Vista cannot be booted by Grub as per your instruction in Post #140. Your Vista must be booted via the Xp partition in sda2. bootmgr will dual boot Xp and Vista there. That is how the M$ systems have arranged themselves. Unless you hide Xp otherwise Vista will mount it regardless. Therefore for multiple MS Windows you need only one boot loader, usually the latest, to control all the M$ systems. The only deviation is to hide every MS system and unhide the one you wish to boot.

If your Ubuntu is in sda7 then boot up a Ubuntu CD and use the terminal to restore Grub by these lines

Code:

sudo grub root (hd0,6) setup (hd0) quit reboot

The above commands Grub to "source" the Grub from 7th partition of the 1st disk and set up Grub in the MBR of the 1st disk.
08-11-2009, 12:13 PM
adempewolff

Ah thank you for your informative and quick reply, it has answered all my questions--even if they weren't the answers I was hoping for.

I was hoping that I would just have to hide xp during the vista installation to keep them seperate but if I would need to keep it hidden except for when I booted into it, that solution is probably too complex (Unless GRUB had the capability to edit the partition type in the partition table as part of the chainloading process).

For now I guess I will just keep the boot manager and if I ever decided to remove Vista I will repair the XP partition by using fixmbr, followed by fixboot, followed by reinstalling GRUB from a live cd.

Thank you again for sharing your wisdom!
08-11-2009, 03:57 PM
saikee

Actually Grub is tailor-made to hide and unhide partitions. Such capability is inside Linux's other boot loader Lilo too.

I have written this thread to show how to use Grub to boot two Vista. The procedure is identical to your case of booting Xp and Vista.

The typical Grub commands are listed here

Code:

title 1st Vista in hda1 root (hd0,0) makeactive unhide (hd0,0) chainloader +1 title 2st Vista in hda2 root (hd0,1) makeactive unhide (hd0,1) hide (hd0,0) chainloader +1

The above method does preserve each MS boot loader in each MS Windows partition but the disadvantage is that you can access only one MS partition at any one time. By going with MS own method, which places all the required boot loaders in the first MS-recognised partition and mounts all partitions recognised by Windows, you can access all of them at the same time. The downside is if the booting partition goes down you have a big job to make the rest of the MS systems bootable again.

MS boot loaders are clumsy relative to Grub because MS does not want to support other systems except their own. Thus extra levels of complication are introduced to protect its commercial interest.

I have dabbled Vista/Win7's BCDedit.exe, bootsect.exe and bootrec.exe to find my way round. However to write something useful, to highlight the differece from NTLDR and to guide others to use them sensibly is a big investment of one's time.

When working with MS boot loaders I find that I need to spend three times more effort to get one-third of the work achieved with Grub.
09-06-2009, 02:31 PM
Reg777

Great tutorial, cant wait to test it out. By the way, can i boot MAC OS X with grub using this guide?
09-06-2009, 05:25 PM
saikee

Reg777,

Welcome to Justlinux!

Never have a Mac myself so couldn't tell. However if it is a Linux implementation then it should work the same.
09-12-2009, 04:36 AM
crazy4nix

Employing your scheme on a USB Flashdrive!

First of all, I am so glad that i stumbled upon your posts Saikee. I have become an instant fan of your posts and you are a celebrity in my world. Your instructions are clear and precise. I am pretty new to linux but am so deeply in love with it that I am posting this at 4:30am in the morning... lol... I go crazy about linux...

Anyhow, the problem:

I wish to create a bootable USB flash drive with dual/triple boot with various small distros such as DSL, Knoppix, INSERT.

So I took a 512MB Kingston SD Card, shoved it in a USB card reader and deleted whatever partition was there by default.

Using fdisk, i created two primary partitions for now. The first partition (sdb1), 10MB in size is FAT16, the second partition (sdb2), 60MB in size (for DSL) is ext3. The remaining space is empty for now.

I love your scheme of installing grub into it's own partition, hence I made the Fat16 partition.
I created /boot/grub dir structure in /dev/sdb1 and copied all the files from /usr/share/grub/i386-redhat/ into /boot/grub/

Then on my Centos system, I typed:
grub
root (hd1,0)
setup (hd1)
quit

Now, when I plug this USB into my thinkpad and boot from USB, I get the grub prompt. So far it's all good.

Next, I copy the 'boot' dir and 'KNOPPIX' dir that reside inside the dsl-4.4.10.iso image into /dev/sdb2 (the 60MB ext3 partition).

On /dev/sdb1, i create a menu.lst under /boot/grub/ and type this inside this file:
title Damn Small Linux
root (hd1,1)
chainloader +1

Save, exit, plug this USB into thinkpad and boot from USB, i still get the grub prompt. Shouldn't it show me the menu, or since there is only one item in menu.lst, boot directly into DSL. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks a lot in advance.

P.S. My Linux System is a Centos 5.2 running as a Virtual Machine on XP Host (VMware Workstation). Intel Core 2 Duo E8400, 4GB RAM.
09-12-2009, 05:04 AM
crazy4nix

Quote:

Originally Posted by saikee

clayg,

Welcome to Justlinux.

Been two years since I wrote this thread.. I think it explains some of your problem. Haven't tried much on USB pen drive since because an external hard disk is much faster and easier for the same thing.

If you want the Linux to work as a Live CD just copy the files, after expanding them from the iso file by a loopback device, onto the USB and change the isolinux to Grub. The above thread gives several conversion examples. They are pretty straight forward.

Hi, I just read posts by clayg and your response to it. You said to convert isolinux bootloader to grub. Why so? Can't grub just chainload isolinux and then isolinux can take charge of booting the distro? After all, chainloading means giving another bootloader charge for booting the OS.

The DSL that I copied to my partition also has isolinux as its bootloader.
09-12-2009, 05:33 AM
saikee

crazy4nix,

Welcome to JustLinux!

isolinux is a boot loader for CD/DVD based on the iso9660 filing specification.

Grub is a boot loader based on block devices (like hard disk, USB pen drives) although it is also suitable for floppies.

Grub uses a different form of boot loader on a CD or DVD. Nornal Grub, now called Grub1 or Legacy Grub as Grub2 has been out, comprises of stage1 and stage2. A single stage2 called stage2_eltorito is used specifically for the CD/DVD structures.

stage2_eltorito does not boot a hdd or a floppy. A CD/DVD does not have a MBR and hence no stage1 application.

The author of isolinux wrote a separate boot loader for bock devices and floppies. It is called syslinux and is offered as a "lightweight" boot loader. It is quite popular with pen drives because I believe it is a Dos based program naturally fits in with the Fat16 and Fat32 filing format of the USB devices.

Hope the above is clear.

For the other post I am not sure exactly what you have done. Hence I can only offer a few pointers

(1) If you intend to boot the USB pen drive as the first booting device then it will be (hd0) to Grub but may be looked upon as sdb by CentOS.

(2) If your men.lst in sdb1 has been included to boot DSL then the Grub menu should show it even if it isn't bootable. Thus you may not have booted up the Grub in sdb1 of the USB drive. That is my currnet prediction according to the information supplied.

(3) You will not be able to boot DSL the way you had described. The "chainloader +1" can only be applied to the partition with a boot loader installed in its boot sector. It is known as an indirect method with which the Grub in MBR boots the boot loader in the partition specified by the "root" command. You have just copied part of the iso file and so no boot loader has been installed in sdb2. The way you described you are better off booting the DSL "directly" . This thread may be of interest to you. The thread was written for putting several Linux iso on a DVD but has been extended for USB devices.

If you like multi-boot then you have come to the right place. I am just a pupil from the masters here!
09-12-2009, 06:45 PM
crazy4nix

Thanks for your input.

(1) If you intend to boot the USB pen drive as the first booting device then it will be (hd0) to Grub but may be looked upon as sdb by CentOS.

Yes, when I plug my pen drive into my laptop and boot from it, it is hd0. (hd0,0) is a fat16 partition where i have /boot/grub/ and all the grub files in it.
(hd0,1) is a ext3 partition where i have copied the contents of dsl iso image, namely the directories 'boot' and 'KNOPPIX'

Now, in (hd0,0) I have /boot/grub/menu.lst with the following entry:

title Damn Small Linux
root (hd0, 1)
kernel /boot/isolinux/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce noapic quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
initrd /boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz

Note: In (hd0,1) I do have the following:
/boot/isolinux/linux24
/boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz

(2) If your men.lst in sdb1 has been included to boot DSL then the Grub menu should show it even if it isn't bootable. Thus you may not have booted up the Grub in sdb1 of the USB drive.

When I boot from my pendrive, i do get the grub prompt. That means that stage 1 grub in the mbr of (hd0) is calling the stage 2 grub in (hd0,0) and hence the grub prompt. Am i right? In other words, my stage 1 grub in the MBR is hard-coded to the grub in (hd0,0).

(3) You will not be able to boot DSL the way you had described. The "chainloader +1" can only be applied to the partition with a boot loader installed in its boot sector. It is known as an indirect method with which the Grub in MBR boots the boot loader in the partition specified by the "root" command. You have just copied part of the iso file and so no boot loader has been installed in sdb2. The way you described you are better off booting the DSL "directly" .

Yes, I understand now that I do NOT have the grub boot loader installed in (hd0,1), because I merely copied the contents of the dsl iso, and did not install it.
But, this time, if you look at my menu.lst in (hd0,0), I am calling the DSL directly. It should work this time, but it isn't.

I looked at your post titled "How to boot several CD iso files in a DVD" available at http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=150078 but there, you have grub and all the iso's in the same partition. Here, I am trying to employ you strategy where the grub is on its own separate partition.
Please point my errors. Thanks a lot in advance.
09-12-2009, 08:48 PM
saikee

Grub will default to a Grub prompt if a menu.lst could not be found in either /boot or /boot/grub directories. If the menu.lst is good Grub will execute it.

In your current case with a Grub prompt you can boot the system manually as follow

Code:

root (hd0, 1) kernel /boot/isolinux/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce noapic quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix initrd /boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz boot

The instructions are identical to what you claimed in the menu.lst except I omit the "title" statement and add the "boot" as a green light for Grub to proceed. That is standard way to boot any Linux manually by using just the instruction in menu.lst.

Booting the Linux manually is to ask Grub to tell you which line it doesn't like. You use Grub as your teacher.

You can also ask Grub to display the content of the menu.lst at a Grub prompt

Code:

root (hd0,0) cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

and ask it to fire up this menu by

Code:

root (hd0,0) configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst

Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page