Re: [Sheflug] Changing Distributions - Complete Linux Newbie question

[Pete Collier <pecb [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wednesday 29 September 2004 20:20, Alex Hudson wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-09-29 at 20:06 +0100, Linux [at] glead.demon.co.uk wrote:
> > A short while ago I decided that I would take a look at Linux as an
> > Alternative to M$. My computer normally runs XP, but I have installed
> > a new HDD and installed the Mepis distro onto it. Unfortunately when I
> > run Mepis Linux my mouse behaves very oddly. After posting on the
> > Mepis list I couldn't get it sorted. Recently I have downloaded the
> > SuSE Live distro which seems to work well for me. How do I go about
> > switching from Mepis to SuSE on my HDD? I haven't got any valuable
> > data on the Linux drive, but do have rather a lot on the other drives.
> > (I did try searching the list archive, so apologize if this has been
> > dealt with before)
>
> You have to be pretty careful at the moment, unfortunately. There is a
> problem in a number of current GNU/Linux distributions where if you
> install GNU/Linux after Windows, you stop Windows from being able to
> boot. This also prevents the FIX(Boot/MBR) tools from working, and re-
> installation of Window also doesn't work :D
>
snip
>
> Cheers,
>
> Alex.
>
To install SuSE over mephis, simply boot of the SuSE cdrom and choose to 
overwrite on your second hard disk. On the SuSE site under the 
help/SDBdatabase section there is a workaround. I tried it on a win2000 / 
SuSE 9.1 setup but couldn't get it to work, I may have missed something 
though. I have seen on the Fedora site another workaround thats supposed to 
work, you'll have to search their postings as I can't remember where. Alex's 
idea of unplugging your winxp drive while installing linux with a 2.6 kernel 
works ok and is a simple quick solution. You then have the option of 
selecting the OS to boot by going into the bios at bootup time and selecting 
the drive to boot, or booting up from the SuSE cdrom, select instalation, 
when you come to the type of installation, you are presented with boot 
installed system. dev/hda1 will be your winxp and SuSE will be 
on /dev/hdc(or /dev/hdd)1 depends on what ide socket your second hard drive 
is connected to. A bit messy but safe until you sort out the correct 
workaround. re this workaround, I recall someone mentioned that when grub is 
installed, it has to be written to the boot/root partion of the linux disk 
and not the mbr. 
	I have about 3 years ago used a freebie windows boot manager (can't remember 
what it was called, came with the pcplus magazine.) but it worked fine.

Peter C
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