Wary HD install won't boot

Message

mdiemer · #46 Post by **mdiemer** » Wed 18 Jul 2018, 21:58

Actually, I spoke too soon. Windows did not fully boot. It started too, but got hung up at the login screen. I just assumed it was booting when I wrote the last reply, and all I needed to do was login and it would be fine. I tried the advanced menu and booted that drive directly, same thing happened. I'm sure this is solvable. I will try some Windows repair tools later on and see that goes. If no luck I'll be back tonight. no worries!

bigpup · #47 Post by **bigpup** » Wed 18 Jul 2018, 23:59

but got hung up at the login screen.

So logging in does nothing?

mdiemer · #48 Post by **mdiemer** » Thu 19 Jul 2018, 00:18

bigpup wrote:
but got hung up at the login screen.
So logging in does nothing?

I can't log in, it gets hung up, I just see the hourglass. I can boot Windows if I change boot priority in (bios), although it took awhile. But booting from grub4dos only gets me partway there.

I'm wondering if this could be due to having two Windows installs, one on sda and one on sdb (although the latter one is not "real" - I never used it, it may just be there because I had copied all sda files to sdb. This was all years ago and I don't remember exactly what happened.

Would installing grub4dos to sda also help? Or might it cause other problems, so I couldn't boot windows even from sda drive?

mdiemer · #49 Post by **mdiemer** » Thu 19 Jul 2018, 16:40

I'm going to search for Windows-related issues. Windows does, in fact, boot, it just hangs at login screen. This makes me think the problem is not with Linux but with windows. for example, maybe windows fast-boot is the issue. If it has it I will disable it. any other tips along these lines would be welcome.

perdido · #50 Post by **perdido** » Thu 19 Jul 2018, 21:03

This is a bit more complex than simply fixing your menu.lst, from what I have read the way to do win98 & puppy dual boot is use grub.exe

It is explained in this post by Bruce_B
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=43141

Hopefully you understand a little bit about editing MSDOS.SYS & CONFIG.SYS

Note that grub for linux is not used anywhere and that the windows partition is where it boots from. Bruce supplied a CONFIG.SYS to
download and changes to do to menu.lst and MSDOS.SYS, no changes to AUTOEXEC.BAT.
Also reinstalled the DOS MBR with the fdisk /mbr command.

His instructions should get you to displaying menu.lst using the grub.exe from windows instead of grub from linux.
.
The only hangup after following the instructions might be adjusting the puppy entry in menu.lst to find the other drive, but first I would just do
what he says and see where it gets you before adjusting menu.lst

..

.

mdiemer · #51 Post by **mdiemer** » Fri 20 Jul 2018, 15:15

Would it be simpler to do a frugal install? That way everything is on same drive, sda. Which is also the master drive. Right now, I have Puppy on the slave drive, and this might be part of the problem. Also, the drives are IDE. The usual dual-booting process, which I am very comfortable with, seems to be fraught with difficulties in this situation. If something goes wrong with the MBR, I know how to use fdisk /mbr from my W98 startup disk. I can make a system image first and just restore it, if things get totally whacked.

mostly_lurking · #52 Post by **mostly_lurking** » Fri 20 Jul 2018, 15:39

mdiemer wrote:Would it be simpler to do a frugal install? That way everything is on same drive, sda. Which is also the master drive. Right now, I have Puppy on the slave drive, and this might be part of the problem.

I think the problem isn't so much Puppy on the slave drive, but the bootloader on the slave drive. (Or maybe something else entirely, who knows?) If you want to try installing a new bootloader on the master (Windows) drive, you might as well leave Puppy on the slave drive - it should have no problem being booted from another location.

mdiemer · #53 Post by **mdiemer** » Sat 21 Jul 2018, 21:24

mostly_lurking wrote:
mdiemer wrote:Would it be simpler to do a frugal install? That way everything is on same drive, sda. Which is also the master drive. Right now, I have Puppy on the slave drive, and this might be part of the problem.
I think the problem isn't so much Puppy on the slave drive, but the bootloader on the slave drive. (Or maybe something else entirely, who knows?) If you want to try installing a new bootloader on the master (Windows) drive, you might as well leave Puppy on the slave drive - it should have no problem being booted from another location.

I'm too nervous about putting grub on sda. What if the same thing happens, and windows won't boot? I think it is best that I just keep Windows drive as default, and use the live CD. By the time I change the boot drive drive in bios, there's not that much difference in boot time. Maybe there's a way to dual boot Windows 98 and Puppy on this system using grub, but for now this seems to be the best solution,

rockedge · #54 Post by **rockedge** » Sat 21 Jul 2018, 23:46

this is what I do......run Grub4Dos let it find the Puppies and install
open the menu.lst and change the Windows title to this:

you will need to change the uuid to match yours.

Code: Select all

# Windows
# this entry searches Windows on the HDD and boot it up
title Windows (sda1:PBS)
  uuid 0A0C871A0C86FFC5
  chainloader +1

this block has started Windows in all the versions I have tried to multi-boot with different Puppy Linux's and DebianDog's and now Corepup.

mdiemer · #55 Post by **mdiemer** » Sun 22 Jul 2018, 17:41

rockedge wrote:this is what I do......run Grub4Dos let it find the Puppies and install
open the menu.lst and change the Windows title to this:

you will need to change the uuid to match yours.
Code: Select all
# Windows
# this entry searches Windows on the HDD and boot it up
title Windows (sda1:PBS)
  uuid 0A0C871A0C86FFC5
  chainloader +1
this block has started Windows in all the versions I have tried to multi-boot with different Puppy Linux's and DebianDog's and now Corepup.

Wow, that looks promising rockedge, I'll try it. I have wondered about that message, which I see when I install Puppy. Here's hoping!

mdiemer · #56 Post by **mdiemer** » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 16:26

I can't figure out how to find W98 UUID. Not sure it has one. Have run some commands and even searched the registry, but to no avail.

rockedge · #57 Post by **rockedge** » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 16:57

open a terminal (console) and type

Code: Select all

blkid

this will give you the uuid

mikeslr · #58 Post by **mikeslr** » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 17:08

Windows 98 doesn't have a UUID. No operating system has. The UUIDs are unique 128-bit numbers used to identify information in computer systems. Open a terminal and type, code:

blkid

and you'll obtain a display of every number assigned to each partition on your computer.

You can cut & paste them into a text file for later use.

Another way is to write a file to the top of the drive/partition on which Window's 98 is located with a unique name, such as --without the quotes 'WhereW98Lives.txt' .

Then, in grub4dos (or grub), start a listing on menu.lst with something like:

title Windows 98
find --set-root --ignore-floppies WhereW98Lives.txt

But I suspect that the problem you are having is that argument is being left out of menu.lst.

Post a copy of your entire menu.lst and maybe we can figure out what that is.

mikesLr

mdiemer · #59 Post by **mdiemer** » Tue 24 Jul 2018, 01:07

Thanks Mikesir for educating me re: UUID, I appreciate it. I ran the command and saved it to a Geany doc, which I also saved to floppy, so I can pass it between puppy 412 and Wary and maybe Windows if it is smart enough (which I doubt). I'm not feeling too smart myself at the moment, I can't seem to find the menu.lst. I have looked in the usual places, boot/grub/menu.lst, but it is not there. I also looked in mnt, but that is empty. Is it hidden?

Edit: I remembered I can get to to it by reinstalling grub4dos. Will do and make changes to menu.lst per instructions.

mdiemer · #60 Post by **mdiemer** » Tue 24 Jul 2018, 02:05

OK, I tried it, still no go. Here is the (edited) Windows block from menu.lst:

(Note: the computer is offline, no printer. I'm going to buy a usb floppy to swap between computers, so I can print out documents).

# Windows
# this entry searches Windows on the HDD an boot it up
title Windows (sda1:PBS)
UUID 1553-5EA
chainloader +1
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map --hook
errorcheck off
find --set-root--ignore-floppies--ignore-cd /bootmgr
chainloader /bootmgr
find --set-root--ignore-floppies--ignore-cd /ntldr
chainloader /ntldr
find --set-root --ignore-floppies -ignore cd /io.sys
chainloader /io.sys
errorcheck on

Note: I bolded the changes per instructions

mdiemer · #61 Post by **mdiemer** » Tue 24 Jul 2018, 02:05

duplicate post

rockedge · #62 Post by **rockedge** » Tue 24 Jul 2018, 04:15

change this block from:

Code: Select all

# Windows
# this entry searches Windows on the HDD an boot it up
title Windows (sda1:PBS)
UUID 1553-5EA
chainloader +1
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map --hook
errorcheck off
find --set-root--ignore-floppies--ignore-cd /bootmgr
chainloader /bootmgr
find --set-root--ignore-floppies--ignore-cd /ntldr
chainloader /ntldr
find --set-root --ignore-floppies -ignore cd /io.sys
chainloader /io.sys
errorcheck on

to this :

Code: Select all

title Windows (sda1:PBS)
UUID 1553-5EA
chainloader +1

and give it a try.

mdiemer · #63 Post by **mdiemer** » Tue 24 Jul 2018, 04:53

Hey Rockedge, I tried your suggestion, no luck. I got an error about an invalid system disk, please replace and try again (what the heck does that mean, anyway?).

I assume you meant to keep the part about

# Windows
# this entry searches windows and boot it up

then follow with

title Windows sda1
UUID etc
chainloader +1

right?

The Grub menu also lists another entry for Windows 9x. That does a partial boot, where it takes you to the login screen, with the cursor in the middle and the wait a minute symbol, which should be moving. Instead it is stationary. I know it won't boot when I see that. If I boot it directly from sda (selecting in bios), I get that screen but the symbol is moving, and it will boot. The regular /windows entry does the same thing, or did until I changed it. I'll reinstall grub again so we're back to square one. tomorrow! (actually, later today - sigh - another day I'll never see again...

mdiemer · #64 Post by **mdiemer** » Thu 26 Jul 2018, 02:53

Whew! I finally took the chance and installed grub to sda1/mbr/windows. It worked! Windows 98 finally booted from grub, after countless futile attempts to do so from sdb. I had a floppy repair disk on hand to repair mbr, but it worked fine. And both Puppy 412 and Wary 5.5 booted as well.

So this thread can be closed. I would have tried sda1 for grub sooner if it was just me, but I was very afraid of messing up W98, which my wife really likes. I am fairly experienced with dual booting linux and windows 7, but not 98, so I was very skittish about it.

thanks to all who helped. this a great forum, and Puppy Linux is a great operating system!

bigpup · #65 Post by **bigpup** » Thu 26 Jul 2018, 04:31

See it was not that hard!

Just for others.
Windows 10 is not this easy.
Read the topics in this forum on duel booting with Windows 10.

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Wary HD install won't boot

Finding the UUID