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  • From: James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>
  • To: basic linux <baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [BL] boot from extended partition
  • Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 09:04:47 -0600 (CST)

On Sat, 10 Dec 2005, Kunle 'bona wrote:

anyway my harddisk is has 7 partitions and bl3 is installed on and extended partition, presently i boot either with a bl3 boot disk1 or from dos with the loadlin.exe .. method, so i was wondering if there was any way i could get to boot directly from the harddisk from startup

You have a few choices. Depends to some degree what's on the other 6 partitions. Safest way would be to create a bootable DOS floppy with loadlin, the BL3 kernel and other files needed for booting. Create an autoexec.bat that runs boot.bat as soon as DOS fires up from the floppy. When you want to boot BL3, reboot, set the computer to boot first from floppy, and stick that floppy in the drive. When you want to boot whatever else you have, leave the floppy out. Other choices involve installing a master boot program or, if you already have a boot program installed (like GRUB or maybe LILO), editing its config file and adding an entry for BL3. If you alreay have such a master boot program installed, it's relatively safe to edit its config, adding an entry for BL3. If you don't have one and need to install one, things get more tricky. Since you'll be fooling with the mbr by installing it, and since you may not have sufficient knowledge to edit it with entries to boot various things that might be on your machine, you run a greater risk of screwing up something on your system--up to and including effectively hosing all your partitions. Proceed at your own risk on this one. If you want to try something like that, take a look at Smart Boot Manager (SBM), a free master bootloader that can either be installed to the HD or run from a floppy. The floppy method allows you to test how effective it will be for your system before installing it to the HD. But be aware that you will have to take some additional steps, i.e., installing LILO to the root of your BL3 partition, before SBM will boot it. That's a tricky maneuver in itself. I think I provided instructions for installing LILO to the root of the BL3 partition, so if you search the archives you may find info about how to do it. You could also try creating a GRUB floppy, or simply downloading a GRUB floppy image from the 'net, study up on GRUB's workings, and try that. If you enter the right values, it should boot BL3 as-is. You can then maybe install GRUB to your HD and have it act as your master boot loader (look at http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/grub/grub.htm for some directions).

On your sound card issue: I believe you told us at some point what chip your mobo uses to generate sound. As you may know, there are many different brands. A popular one is the Soundblaster brand, but there are many others as well. Some of those others, though not Soundblasters, are compatible with Soundblaster. But yours may be neither the Soundblaster brand, nor a compatible brand. If that's the case, the sound package provided for BL3 will _not_ work. It can be a tricky thing getting non-Soundblaster cards set up on BL3. So, if you want to get it going, be prepared for some research and possibly alot of experimentation.

James




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