[Tutorial]Easy Multiboot Environment with Grub4Dos Brigs Lab's

11/23/10 6:07 PM

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June 14th, 2010

[Tutorial]Easy Multiboot Environment with Grub4Dos

Computer Hardware & Software, Tips & trick, by brigs.

Multiboot or in the of multiple booting environment is one way to easy selecting Operating System that we want to load and running. For some people specially windows user it was very easy cause your windows boot manager automaticaly detecting and put some code for booting your earlier windows version. But what happen if your inside multiple different operating system like windows, mac osx, bsd or linux system ? With this article i explaining much clear for preparing your system into multi os environment and tools. Other word there are much multiboot tools will help you to solving these problem such smart bootmanager, easy bcd or vistaboot pro but why grub4dos ? Grub4Dos is an universal boot loader based on GNU GRUB. It can boot off DOS/LINUX, or via Windows boot manager/syslinux/lilo, or from MBR/CD. It also has builtin BIOS disk emulation, ATAPI CDROM driver, etc. Assuming we want installing 3 operating system in single hard drive 1Tb capacity with Windows 7, MacosX and Opensuse. For preparation we using some free tools to help us configuring later, that is gparted partition tools (live cd version) and grub4dos bootmanager. Brief for preparing the partition before installation 1. Burn your gparted live cd and then boot it and starting to create a plan partition 2. Create primary partition space about 60-120Gb for your windows 7 partition or you can adjusting your size for desire correct size for your purpose. You dont need to format these partition with gparted cause
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[Tutorial]Easy Multiboot Environment with Grub4Dos Brigs Lab's

11/23/10 6:07 PM

your windows 7 installer will self executing formatting later. 3. Create primary partition again for your Mac osX about the same like windows 7 size or bigger one cause Mac osX using same partition for root and user environment. For these partition i recomended to formating with fat32 before you starting mac osX installation process 4. Create primary partition for root opensuse says about 20Gb 30Gb or desire for what purpose. You may formatting one with fat32 or ext3 or none (ill explain later in installation guide) 5. Create small partition for opensuse swap. The size is depending your system memory configuration. For easy way with system memory below 2Gb you can allocating space twice your memory and for above 4Gb you can using 1:1 or 1/2 system memory. 6. Create small extended partition says about 1Gb to 2Gb for your linux /home. why you must create this ? cause linux still using different data partition for configuring desktop environment base with user privilege. Or if you plan using windows based program that running with wine you must preparing enough /home size later for installation. 7. For a rest an extended partition we can using for share data between 3 different operating system above. We can using ntfs formatting for this purpose while Mac osX and Opensuse have library for utilize ntfs partition with small utility like ntfs-3g Ok, after we clearly preparing and calculating a correct size partition and space, we can starting installation process, here a brief a step by step : 1. Starting one with windows 7 installation process, format a first partition with ntfs file system and starting process installation until finish. Just for remember that this process automaticaly windows 7 installer create boot flag code itself into mbr for calling his bootmgr. 2. Insert your gparted live-cd again for change boot flag partition from windows 7 partition to Mac OS partition. For safely way you can using other option to make hidden your windows 7 partition until other operating system complete.

gparted live-cd with menu boot flag option 3. Start Mac osX installer and finishing your tweak config for that. A different way Mac osX using chain0 for their boot manager that you can easy find it with hidden files in your Mac osX partition.
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[Tutorial]Easy Multiboot Environment with Grub4Dos Brigs Lab's

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4. After complete your mac installation insert gparted livecd like step 2 above but this time you change bootflag from mac os to opensuse root partition. Now you can safely start opensuse installation process. 5. Insert your opensuse dvd installation and starting your suse installer. If you plan with ability to read suse partition with 3th party tools like ext2fs or diskinternal linux reader tools later you must create a custom formatting from default opensuse installer. - If you decide to using Ext3 filesystem with journaling you only change inode size from default suse is 256 to 128 before going to installation process.

- Or if you want considerable to using new Ext4 filesystem with journaling extended capability (from what a read that Ext4 partition have a better read and write speed that Ext3 filesystem) you must using live-cd openuse or other distros that supporting Ext4 filesystem for pre formatting /root and /home suse linux partition with adding command -O ^extent (without quote) to disable extent capability in Ext4 FS such : #mkfs.ext4 -I 128 -O^extent /dev/your device node or partition Opensuse itself still using grub bootloader for booting kernel parameter. First this option you must installing opensuse grub in root partition or / and not in mbr partition. After finishing your installation you can copy menu.lst file in directory /boot/grub to safe place in data share partition with ntfs support filesystem. 6. Boot again with gparted live-cd to restore hidden partition and boot flag option in windows 7, exit gparted and boot your system again with windows 7 to configuring grub4dos. After all installation process complete now its time to configuring booting manager with Grub4Dos in Windows 7 operating system. Extract Grub4Dos in safe place and doing what i do here 1. Rename bootmgr to bootmgr7 in root windows partition (you must check option view with explorer with hidden files and protected windows filesystem). I recomending to disable windows UAC for these step. 2. Copy file grldr from extracted grub4dos folder and rename grldr to bootmgr to intercept windows 7
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[Tutorial]Easy Multiboot Environment with Grub4Dos Brigs Lab's

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original bootloader. For Mac bootloader you must copy chain0 file to windows root too. 3. Using your notepad or other editor for editing menu.lst from original opensuse menu.lst in step 5 instalation above. # GRUB4DOS Powerfull multiboot Environment # That has been tested and comply by Brigs Labs. #Sets colors, timeout before default selected and default value color white/black red/black timeout 15 default 0 #Boot XP by finding and loading ntldrxp #title Microsoft Windows XP Pro x86 Sp3 #find set-root /ntldrxp #chainloader /ntldrxp #Boot Win 7 title Microsoft Windows 7 x64 find set-root /bootmgr7 chainloader /bootmgr7 #Opensuse (just sample) title Desktop openSUSE 11.2 2.6.31.12-0.2 root (hd1,3) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/your device name-part3 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/your device name-part4 splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0317 acpi_enforce_resources=lax initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop #Boot OSX86 by finding and loading chain0 title Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 find set-root /chain0 chainloader /chain0 save to root windows partition, as i say above that you can configuring grub4dos just more than for operating system system caller but you can make bootmanager menu for other usefull utility like hirens bootcd, memtest-86 or partition tools. You can read Grub4Dos tutorial for more complex use command. Make copy your cd emulation .iso files in your folder /image and add some boot command in menu.lst with correct path to your filename

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[Tutorial]Easy Multiboot Environment with Grub4Dos Brigs Lab's

11/23/10 6:07 PM

Easy bootmenu config with Grub4Dos #Ultimate Boot CD 3.4 title Ultimate Boot CD 3.4 map /image/ubcd34.iso (hd32) map hook chainloader (hd32) #GParted title Gnome Partition LiveCD map /image/gparted.iso (hd32) map hook chainloader (hd32) rootnoverify (hd32) #Paragon Partition Manager title Paragon Partition Manager find set-root /image/paragon.iso map /image/paragon.iso (0xff) || map mem /image/paragon.iso (0xff) map hook chainloader (0xff) #WD Diagnostic tools 5.04f title WD HDD Diagnostic 5.04f map /image/diag504f.iso (hd32) map hook chainloader (hd32) #SeaTools 2.17 title Seagate SeaTools 2.17 map /image/ST_217.iso (hd32)
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[Tutorial]Easy Multiboot Environment with Grub4Dos Brigs Lab's

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map hook chainloader (hd32) #Memtest title Memtest86+ v4.0 find set-root /image/memtest86-4.bin kernel /image/memtest86-4.bin quiet boot #Boot USB Disk Drive by swap method; note your USB HDD number may be #different. I have fife internal HDDs ((hd0) (hd4)), making my USB HDD #(hd5). Therefore, I have to swap (hd0) with (hd5). title Boot from USB FlashDisk map (hd5) (hd0) map (hd0) (hd5) chainloader (hd0)+1 #CD-ROM Boot title Boot from LG DVD-ROM cdrom init map hook chainloader (cd0) boot FAQ : Q : Why not using original grub bootloader in opensuse installation ? A : In many case we usually found that windows is easier broken that other two operating system, we only doing a small backup in safe place your correct menu.lst configuration for restoring sometimes if must install your windows again Q : If i using 3 different hard drive for 3 or 5 different operating system, is it grub4dos still capable ? A : Of course, yes it is. you only start counting your hard drive id like (hd 0,1) or (hd 2,1) and so on for path to correct boot flag and option to boot your different hdd that your grub4dos installation. Bookmark It

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