Dual Booting Linux and Reactos. (React OS Booter and GRUB)

[laos]

Hey,

I got in front of me Freespire 1.0.3 and ReactOS.

Heres the deal, I got two boxes (one for testing anything i got and another is my primary PC with Vista and XP) one is empty with 2 hard drives and a lot of power (2 gigs ram, geforce 6800 wireless network AND LAN slot. soundblaster.)

Either (Freespire or ReactOS) can be installed first. However i need to get them working.

P.S. When i attempt to put the booter on a floppy, it fails to work, if someone ZIPS what needs to be in there in order to boot the floppy thats a great alternative to the dual boot

Thanks,
Laos

[Nmn]

Here you go:

1. Setup your partitions - You can use Paragon Partition Manager's floppy tool to do this work without installing anything that might confuse ROS. THIS STEP IS ONLY NECESSARY IN CASE YOU WANT TO INSTALL ROS ONTO PART OF A HARD DRIVE AND NOT THE WHOLE THING. I've never had trouble with using React OS's partition manager, but it has limitations that you'll most likely meet eventually.

2. Install React OS before doing much, it might cause partition tables that React can't handle if you do too much.

3. Install Freespire, and setup GRUB a grub entry that chain loads your ReactOS partition. Alternatively, you can set it up normal and do the following.

Manually configuring the GRUB chain loader for ReactOS:
Do not do this if your OS offers an advanced GRUB configuration utility.

1. Go to a Linux Terminal
2. Log in as root. This can be done easily via "su" on an already open terminal
3. type 'kwrite /boot/grub/menu.lst' or 'gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst' or keep changing the editor name to whatever the hell freespire has installed. Of course, if your a hardcore Linux user, you can use nano or vim instead of kwrite/kedit/gedit
4. In the chosen editor, you can setup your chainloader. I just added:

title React OS
root (hd0,0) # First: HD num starting at 0. Second: Partition num starting at 0.
kernel /freeldr.sys DefaultOS=ReactOS TimeOut=0

after the last entry (entries start with title and contain all of the tabbed lines after it). This works as long as you don't need to debug. At first i thought you couldn't use TimeOut=0, but it turns out it works great.

[Pr0b3L]

hi all. I'm trying to boot ReactOS using grub, but I've got a message "Could not find the System hive!".
/boot/grub/grub.conf

Code: Select all

title ReactOS
root (hd0,3)
kernel /freeldr.sys DefaultOS=ReactOS TimeOut=0

/mnt/windows/freeldr.ini

Code: Select all

[FREELOADER]
DefaultOS=ReactOS
Timeout=0

[Display]
TitleText=ReactOS Boot Manager
StatusBarColor=Cyan
StatusBarTextColor=Black
BackdropTextColor=White
BackdropColor=Blue
BackdropFillStyle=Medium
TitleBoxTextColor=White
TitleBoxColor=Red
MessageBoxTextColor=White
MessageBoxColor=Blue
MenuTextColor=White
MenuColor=Blue
TextColor=Yellow
SelectedTextColor=Black
SelectedColor=Gray

[Operating Systems]
ReactOS="ReactOS"

[ReactOS]
BootType=ReactOS
SystemPath=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\reactos
Options=/DEBUGPORT=SCREEN

first of all, it said "Could not find NTOSKRNL.EXE", i've copied "/mnt/windows/reactos/ntoskrnl.exe" to "/mnt/windows/reactos/system32/". Now it says "Could not find the System hive!"
what should I do?

[steveh]

>hi all. I'm trying to boot ReactOS using grub, but I've got a message "Could not find the System hive!".

Maybe you do indicate the appropriate partition number.

>>/boot/grub/grub.conf
>>Code:
>>title ReactOS
>>root (hd0,3)
>>kernel /freeldr.sys DefaultOS=ReactOS TimeOut=0

Number 3 means that you boot reactos on the fourth partition.
0 would be for the first partition.
The number in grub is always the partition number minus 1.

[Pr0b3L]

> Number 3 means that you boot reactos on the fourth partition.
Yes, it is. But if I write in freeldr.ini

Code: Select all

SystemPath=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\reactos

or any other number I've got "Unable to locate system partition".
Windows 2k boots fine from this partition and in boot.ini I've got this:

Code: Select all

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000" /fastdetect

0_o
my "fdisk -l", may be it would be helpful:

Code: Select all

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80060424192 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9733 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1        1253    10064691   83  Linux
/dev/hda2            1254        7279    48403845   83  Linux
/dev/hda3            7280        9095    14587020    5  Extended
/dev/hda4   *        9096        9733     5124735    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda5            7280        7330      409626   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda6            7331        8961    13100976   83  Linux
/dev/hda7            8962        9069      867478+  83  Linux
/dev/hda8            9070        9095      208813+  83  Linux