making a bootable partition for windows after installing ubuntu

[Daniel Gimpelevich]

The problem is that your BIOS is too old for your hard disk. While the
Linux kernel overcomes that problem, neither LILO nor GRUB is able to do
so. Do not make any changes using the DOS fdisk, but make a note of
exactly how big it thinks your hard disk is (probably around 8GB). You
must then use a Linux LiveCD to repartition your drive as follows. Note
that you will have to reinstall both Windows and Linux from scratch
because repartitioning will erase your disk.
/dev/hda1 -- Primary partition, Linux native (ext3), 96MB or 128MB
/dev/hda2 -- Primary partition, W95 LBA FAT-32, 7GB
/dev/hda3 -- Primary partition, Linux swap, 128MB (or more)
/dev/hda4 -- Extended partition, rest of the drive
/dev/hda5 -- Logical partition, Linux native (ext3), some reasonable size
Install Windows and then install Linux. Tell the Linux installer to use
/dev/hda1 as /boot and /dev/hda5 as /, and do not change the position or
size of the Windows partition from the above, or Windows will not work
properly. If you do things this way, LILO and GRUB will both handle things
perfectly, if configured properly. It's a little easier to make GRUB work
with such a setup.

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 15:45:00 -0400, Kussh wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I have been unable to find any literature on installing lilo properly on
> my 120 GB hard disk though the GRUB bootloader which came with hoary is 
> automatically installed.
> 
> I first created some partitions for ubuntu on the hard disk and then 
> after installing it, am thinking of having a dual boot from windows too. 
> have been able to create some fat 32 partitions for windows/dos but grub 
> documentation says that it has some problems with fat32/ntfs 
> partitions--therefore tried to setup lilo as the dual boot loader. But 
> it gives an error at the stage where the master boot record is to be 
> installed.
> 
> How can i install windows on the windows partition and setup lilo also?
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> The linux partitions are all on "extended" partition and i suppose 
> dos/windows can only be loaded on a primary partition. I have used 
> gparted for partitioning but the new dos partitions have not been 
> mounted as gparted has no such options.
> 
> I have also tried booting from a dos rescue disk but the dos fdisk 
> command does not recognise the entire hard drive--only a small portion 
> of it. I have not been able to format any dos partition with it.
> 
> wiki.ubuntu forum does not have any documentation on why the install mbr 
> fails or how it can be solved.
> 
> the info lilo and info liloconfig details also do not shed any light on 
> the problem.
> etc/lilo.conf is as follows
> 
> ***************************
> # Generated by liloconfig
> 
> # This allows booting from any partition on disks with more than 1024
> # cylinders.
> lba32
> 
> # Specifies the boot device
> boot=/dev/hda7
> 
> # Specifies the device that should be mounted as root.
> # If the special name CURRENT is used, the root device is set to the
> # device on which the root file system is currently mounted. If the root
> # has been changed with  -r , the respective device is used. If the
> # variable ROOT is omitted, the root device setting contained in the
> # kernel image is used. It can be changed with the rdev program.
> root=/dev/hda7
> 
> # Bitmap configuration for /boot/sarge.bmp
> bitmap=/boot/sarge.bmp
> bmp-colors=1,,0,2,,0
> bmp-table=120p,173p,1,15,17
> bmp-timer=254p,432p,1,0,0
> 
> # Enables map compaction:
> # Tries to merge read requests for adjacent sectors into a single
> # read request. This drastically reduces load time and keeps the map
> # smaller. Using COMPACT is especially recommended when booting from a
> # floppy disk.
> # compact
> 
> # Install the specified file as the new boot sector.
> # LILO supports built in boot sectory, you only need
> # to specify the type, choose one from 'text', 'menu' or 'bitmap'.
> # new: install=bmp      old: install=/boot/boot-bmp.b
> # new: install=text     old: install=/boot/boot-text.b
> # new: install=menu     old: install=/boot/boot-menu.b or boot.b
> # default: 'menu' is default, unless you have a bitmap= line
> # Note: install=bmp must be used to see the bitmap menu.
> # install=menu
> install=menu
> 
> # Specifies the number of _tenths_ of a second LILO should
> # wait before booting the first image.  LILO
> # doesn't wait if DELAY is omitted or if DELAY is set to zero.
> # delay=20
> 
> # Prompt to use certaing image. If prompt is specified without timeout,
> # boot will not take place unless you hit RETURN
> prompt
> timeout=50
> 
> # Specifies the location of the map file. If MAP is
> # omitted, a file /boot/map is used.
> map=/boot/map
> 
> # Specifies the VGA text mode that should be selected when
> # booting. The following values are recognized (case is ignored):
> #   NORMAL  select normal 80x25 text mode.
> #   EXTENDED  select 80x50 text mode. The word EXTENDED can be
> #     abbreviated to EXT.
> #   ASK  stop and ask for user input (at boot time).
> #   <number>  use the corresponding text mode. A list of available modes
> #     can be obtained by booting with  vga=ask  and pressing [Enter].
> vga=normal
> 
> # These images were automagically added. You may need to edit something.
> 
> image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-5-386
> 	label="Linux 2.6.10-0"
> 	initrd=/boot/initrd.img-2.6.10-5-386
> 	read-only
> 
> image=/boot/memtest86+.bin
> 	label="Memory Test+"
> 	read-only
> 
> # If you have another OS on this machine (say DOS),
> # you can boot if by uncommenting the following lines
> # (Of course, change /dev/hda2 to wherever your DOS partition is.)
> # other=/dev/hda2
> #   label="MS Windows"