Very Computer

> I just recently bought a second hard drive, which is attached to a
> Promise Ultra133 TX2 controller card. It is the only drive attached to
> the card. I also have my older drive still attached to my on-board IDE
> bus as the master boot drive. Currently I run Windows 2000 on this drive
> and it works fine, and I can access the new drive attached to the
> controller card without any problems.

> What I want to do, however, is load Windows XP and Linux (probably
> Slackware... not that that'll make a difference) onto the NEW drive
> attached to the controller card. As a result, I want to wipe my old
> drive clean and use it for storage, but also as a boot drive.

>I just recently bought a second hard drive, which is attached to a
>Promise Ultra133 TX2 controller card. It is the only drive attached to
>the card. I also have my older drive still attached to my on-board IDE
>bus as the master boot drive. Currently I run Windows 2000 on this drive
>and it works fine, and I can access the new drive attached to the
>controller card without any problems.

>What I want to do, however, is load Windows XP and Linux (probably
>Slackware... not that that'll make a difference) onto the NEW drive
>attached to the controller card. As a result, I want to wipe my old
>drive clean and use it for storage, but also as a boot drive.

>Essentially, I want to create a small boot partition (/boot) at the
>beginning of the old drive and configure LILO on it. So, LILO would be
>setup to boot Linux but also add support for the Promise controller
>card, hence, allowing access to the new drive.

>So far, I have been able to successfully load Linux from CD, and add
>support for the controller by passing something like:

>ide2=0xb800,0xb402 ide3=0xb007,0xa805

>This is fine. The problem I have is with Windows XP. Since it is
>entirely on the other drive, how can I configure LILO to see the WinXP
>partition on the new drive? I figure that since I have to pass
>additional information to Linux, this must mean I have to pass it for
>Windows too, correct?

>>I've been looking around for a solution to my problem with little luck,
>>so I'm hoping that someone here might have some additional insight or
>>experience to help me out.

>>I just recently bought a second hard drive, which is attached to a
>>Promise Ultra133 TX2 controller card. It is the only drive attached to
>>the card. I also have my older drive still attached to my on-board IDE
>>bus as the master boot drive. Currently I run Windows 2000 on this drive
>>and it works fine, and I can access the new drive attached to the
>>controller card without any problems.

>>What I want to do, however, is load Windows XP and Linux (probably
>>Slackware... not that that'll make a difference) onto the NEW drive
>>attached to the controller card. As a result, I want to wipe my old
>>drive clean and use it for storage, but also as a boot drive.

>>Essentially, I want to create a small boot partition (/boot) at the
>>beginning of the old drive and configure LILO on it. So, LILO would be
>>setup to boot Linux but also add support for the Promise controller
>>card, hence, allowing access to the new drive.

>>So far, I have been able to successfully load Linux from CD, and add
>>support for the controller by passing something like:

>>ide2=0xb800,0xb402 ide3=0xb007,0xa805

>>This is fine. The problem I have is with Windows XP. Since it is
>>entirely on the other drive, how can I configure LILO to see the WinXP
>>partition on the new drive? I figure that since I have to pass
>>additional information to Linux, this must mean I have to pass it for
>>Windows too, correct?

> Windows (all versions) will only boot from the C: drive.

> Two possible solutions:

> 1.  Create a small partition on the IDE drive for the Windows boot codes.  But
> install the bulk (mucho) of Windows to the Promise drive.  This will work for
> some versions of Windows.  I think I configured Win 95 to run from D:\windows
> this way, but it put boot stuff in my DOS partition on C:.

> 2.  Disable the IDE drive in the BIOS.  Install windows to the Promise drive
> as if it were the C: drive.  It will be BIOS 0x80 under these circumstances.  
> Re-enable the IDE drive; boot Linux.  Make the following entry in
> /etc/lilo.conf:

> other=/dev/hdb1
>    label=Windoze
>    map-drive=0x81 to=0x80
>    map-drive=0x80 to=0x81

> Re-run /sbin/lilo to install this boot option.  By swapping the BIOS device
> codes in the LILO chain loader, Windows now thinks it is booting from 0x80,
> which is the C: drive.

> I have Linux on /dev/hdc, Win2k on /dev/hda1, and Win98 on /dev/hdb1, booting
> the last using this approach.  LILO is used as the boot manager, installed:
> "boot = /dev/hda" in lilo.conf.

> --John

>I think my biggest concern is whether LILO (or GRUB) will even see the
>drive on the Promise controller. Under Linux, I can access the drive as
>/dev/hde, and as I mentioned in my original post, I have to explicitly
>tell the kernel where the extra two IDEs from the Promise controller
>are. Now, again, I'm using a generic kernel to boot off of the Slackware
>Installation CD, for now, until I figure all this other stuff out and
>I'm ready to begin installing. But my biggest concern is with LILO and
>GRUB themselves and whether it will even SEE /dev/hde on the Promise
>controller.

>> The LILO boot loader is another story.  It knows nothing about /dev/hde, or
>> hda, hdb, hdc, ... etc.  It uses the BIOS for I/O, so it is only concerned
>> with BIOS device codes.  If the BIOS assigns a device code to the drive, then
>> LILO can "see" it.  Does your Promise controller give you any indication that
>> it installs BIOS support for attached drives.  Mine does.

>Not quite sure on that. My Promise controller IS initialized immediately
>after the system BIOS goes through the memory test, before Windows begin
>booting on my current boot drive (/dev/hda). It comes up with a screen
>that detects the drives attached to the controller, but doesn't really
>say anything about installing BIOS support. Is this what this is then?