Bt4 dual boot tutorial

[KMDave]

You said when you boot from the USB stick your harddrive is assigned sdb instead of sda? If you boot from a LiveCD it is sda?

[custode]

Unfortunately I have no disc drive, just USB.

I did think this could be part of the issue, so did try editing lilo.conf (with sdb as the HDD), then starting lilo, then editing lilo.conf back to sda in anticipation of booting, but that did not work either.

[Ghost40]

Thanks. I will check tonight after class, I wil try with nano. Will post my results. I will check into making sure I have the correct partition numbers as well.

[Ghost40]

OKay, it seems as though I had root pointed at "hda", not "sda"

Thanks for the help again, I feel like a noob

[custode]

Ok, I'm still in the weeds. When I boot with the BT4 USB, my HDD becomes /dev/sdb, so I think that's causing problems with LILO
1) I edit lilo.conf to sdb so that it works when I load it 'lilo -v'...but when I reboot, it's now sda, so that didn't work (panic)
2) I edit lilo.conf to sdb, load lilo, then edit conf back to sda...doesn't work, same kernel panic
3) I install nUbuntu via the Ubuntu installer, (w/GRUB)...all is well. So I tried just taking the existing partition structure and installing the various BT folders/files...ended up getting GRUB error 17...tried editing default.cap to no avail.
4) Tried sticking with the install guide, inserting some GRUB language:

# mke2fs /dev/sdb1
     # mount -t ext2 /dev/sdb1 /mnt
     # grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdb1
     # umount /mnt

(for full disclosure, my vista partition is /sdb2, so my boot partition is 1, swap is 3, rest is 4, but I've tried so many alternatives (extended partitions, no swap) that I think the issue is with the boot loader. This time I got GRUB error 22.

Last comment: I do have a nUbuntu USB, and when used, the usb is sdb, HDD is sda...is there a way to edit SOMETHING on the BT usb to direct this assignment? I did try reordering my boot order in BIOS but nothing changed.

Also, no CD drive available so when I get to the point where I really need to get to vista, I just boot to nUbuntu, clear partitions with fdisk, then go back to the installer...grub sees vista just fine and I'm in business...but I want to be in business w/BT4, not nUbuntu.

[dubZ3r0]

Never mind! The answer was in my lilo.conf file. I didn't change the "root=" reference. All is working well now.

dubZ3r0 <-- suffers from ID10t syndrome...



Hey all,
I followed the tut to the "T" making the necessary changes for my volumes and everything went just as expected. That is until I rebooted and selected the BT4 option in LILO. At that point I get a panic message that reads "Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel." I searched online but there seems to be a number of issues that can result in this behavior. I'm hoping this group can narrow down the issue resulting from the steps within this tut.

I'm attempting to dual boot an ASUS eeepc 1000dh btw.

Thanks.

[digitalfriction]

Hi, could do with some help, I have so far been running BT4B from DVD and USB, but I have decided to follow the tutorial and do a dual boot, I am dual booting with Windows 7 Beta.

I have followed the instructions as written, and received no errors.

On reboot I have 2 problems:

1) The lilo screen does not appear properly, just a few lines at the top of the screen, almost like the graphics is set wrong. I think this may be to do with the Toshiba Bios Splash Screen on the laptop I am using, so this is not as important as problem 2

2) I get the 'Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.' error. I have tried to resolve this by doing the following:

a) Booted from the Live DVD, then opened a shell, cd /mnt/sda4, nano lilo.conf, I have then tried removing the 'initrd=/boot/splash.initrd' line as suggested in another post on these forums.

b) I have also checked that I have my root and boot lines correct, I have boot set as /dev/sda and root set as /dev/sda4

c) I have searched on google, and using the search on the forum, I have found a few posts, all of which suggest the things I have tried, or do not reach an answer, most of the results from google do not seem specific enough for BT4B

I apologise if I have not searched well enough, but I have tried, and could do with some help please.


Update: I have tried changing the root= line I have set it to /dev/sda4 and /dev/sda3 and /dev/sda2. All have the same result.

I have also looked at the directory structure that was created during the install, and strangely enough /mnt/sda4/boot is empty, so I have copied the contents of the boot folder from the liveDVD to /mnt/sda4/boot, but this has also made no difference.

I am going to try again from scratch, and if it doesnt work I will try without windows being installed.

Could still do with some help, I know everyones busy, but if you can !! Thanks

[digitalfriction]

Sorry to repost, last post is looking a bit long now.

I have now also tried to run the installer posted on another thread here (unofficial installer) this still has the same problem.

I dont think there is anything else I can do other than try fresh install, without windows, but if anyone can help please do.

[purehate]

post you entire lilo.conf

[digitalfriction]

lba32
boot = /dev/sda
root = /dev/sda4
# bitmap=/boot/sarge.bmp
# bmp-colors=1,,0,2,,0
# bmp-table=120p,173p,1,15,17
# bmp-timer=254p,432p,1,0,0
# install=bmp
# delay=20
prompt
timeout=50
# map=/boot/map
vga=0x317
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=BT4
read-only
initrd=/boot/splash.initrd
append=quiet

other=/dev/sda1
label=Windows7
table=/dev/sda


Here is fdisk readout:

root@bt:/mnt/sda4/etc# fdisk /dev/sda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 14593.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x01b62676

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 7297 58608128 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 7297 7305 68260+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 7306 7567 2104515 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 7568 14593 56436345 83 Linux


and fstab:

/dev/sda4 / reiserfs defaults 0 0 # AutoUpdate
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 # AutoUpdate
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0 # AutoUpdate
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0 # AutoUpdate
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0 # AutoUpdate