Re: Win9x+Win2k+Linux without nested bootmenus plus a feature request

[Christoph Plattner]

A very simple workaround here is to create a small "boot partition"
as primary for NT2K. This partition includes the boot loader of
NT and in the boot.ini the big extended Win2K partition is defined
as NT root disk.

With friendly regards
        Christoph P.

"A. Klingenstein" wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> I want to install the 3  OSes (and maybe more) mentioned in the subject line
> on a single HD with the following layout:
> 
> primary: FAT32 - win9x
> extended  begin
>   logical: NTFS - win2k
>   logical: ext2fs/reiserfs - debian
>   logical: swap - linux swap
>   logical: NTFS - big data partition, maybe other OSes (BSD, BeOS)
> extended end
> 
> In Win2k the drive layout should be:
> 
>  win9x partition: C:\
>  Win2k systempartition: D:\
>  Win2k data partition: E:\
> 
> since I want to share a few apps between win9x and win2k, and these apps might
> need the same paths everywhere.
> 
> The problem is the win2k bootloader NTLDR which totally insists on putting 
> itself on
> a primary FAT partition if it s present and occupying the Bootsector there. 
> This forces
> me first to choose between Linux and Windows and secondly between the two
> flavours of windows.
> I don t want nested Boot-Menus!
> 
> I came up with a solution of sorts:
> FAT32 has a 2nd backup copy of the bootsector at sector 6 of the FAT32 
> partition.
> This sector isn t overwritten by win2k, so I can use it with "chainloader 
> 6+1" and
> win2k can be booted by a simple "chainloader +1"
> 
> My question now is this: is this the best solution available, or have I just 
> invented a
> horrible kludge or both ?
> 
> Lastly the feature request:
> Some BIOSes (Award) show some hw-info on bootup: what HDs/CDROMs are attached,
> which memory banks are full, what are the IO ports of peripherals and what 
> IRQs are
> used for which PCI-cards, etc.
> My old bootmanager (xfdisk) had a nice feature: you pressed F5 and all of the 
> bootmanager
> stuff disappeared and you could look at this info. When GRUB starts, it 
> overwrites all.
> So can we get a GRUB command to show the screen before GRUB took over ?
> 
> Alex
> 
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