Another Grub-Dual-Boot-Problem

[vidocq]

Hi all

Recently I bought a second harddisk (serial-ata) for my desktop computer and decided to install Gentoo. - Not a big deal, I thought, since I did it several times before without major problems. Here's my partition-scheme:

Primary partitions:
/dev/sda1 - ntfs, Windows XP
/dev/sda2 - ntfs, Games (one of the reasons, why I still use Windows)

/dev/sdb1 - ntfs, several files used in windows
/dev/sdb2 - fat32 for exchanging files between Gentoo and XP

Extendend p.:
/dev/sdb3 - Extended
/dev/sdb5 - /boot, ext2
/dev/sdb6 - swap
/dev/sdb7 - /, reiserfs

Gentoo-Setup went well, and I've choosen to install grub to /boot (not into the mbr!) and keep ntldr. So I used dd to read the boot-sector (dd if=/dev/sdb5 of=/dev/sdb2/linux.bin bs=512 count=1) and edited XP's boot.ini.

- After rebooting my machine ntldr presented me the option to boot Gentoo as expected, but Grub quit with "Geom Error", which is usualy a sign for lba-Problems. Since I've got a Pentium4 with a pretty new bios and never had any problems with the 1024-cylinder-limit during the last years (btw: The ntldr's loading grub, so the cylinder-limit shouldn't be a problem), I decided to search for another solution than moving /boot.

While using google, I've found a website (http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html) which told me that I had to create /boot "on the same hard drive (probably the first hard drive) that has the Windows boot loader (NTLDR) on the MBR". - Is this true? If yes, is there a workaround?

Thanks in advance,

Michael

[jetcowbob]

Heya there-
I was just reading in another forum as well, and had the problem myself with booting windows from a second hard disk. The solution that worked for me is right out of the grub manual.. use the mapping option specified. works great. less filling.

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/DOS-Windows.html#DOS%2fWindows

[vidocq]

Hi jetcowbob

Thanks for your answer, but Windows is located on the first partition of the first harddisk (/dev/sda1), so I'm not sure if your solution will work for me. - Or did I miss the point in the GRUB manual?