T'Krin's Realm

with a slight twist. In preperation for CTCon5 WTF, I decided to setup a windows install on my Linux only laptop.

I installed windows to a spare drive in a spare laptop. I then transfered that the drive to a modular bay caddy and put it in my laptop. The typical dual boot setup is to have the Windows install be on /dev/hda or /dev/sda, but in my case it will be /dev/hdc.

I use LILO, version 22.5.9, as my boot loader. I have used GRUB but LILO has always worked so I stick with it. To get this particular setup working, the system needs to be ‘faked out’ to think that /dev/hdc is the primary boot device, /dev/hda. This can be done using the boot-as option in /etc/lilo.conf. This results in a section for the Windows installs as follows:



other = /dev/hdc1

table = /dev/hdc

label = windows

boot-as=0x80


In my case the LILO boot loader is installed on /dev/hda, which is typical, therefore, the boot-as option must specify the BIOS device code for that hard drive, in my case 0×80.

With that entry in /etc/lilo.conf you run the /sbin/lilo command to commit the changes. From now on you can now boot the Windows install that is on the removeable hard drive. Bada bing, bada bang.