Installed Gentoo without Grub, can't access.

[Sagi446]

I installed Gentoo 2008.0 AMD64 Livecd without GRUB, I like the Vista bootloader more than Grub and I was afraid that Grub might not recognize Vista or XP for some reason. So anywho I have EasyBCD which loads Grub if I choose Linux. But it's .conf has nothing but commentary in it. So Grub keeps asking me for the kernel location. Could somebody tell me what's the location of the kernel? I know which partition it's located on.

Thank you.

[darkscreamer]

Have you compiled your kernel manually, or have you used genkernel?
In the first case your kernel file is /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage; you should copy it in /boot. Renaming it into something easy to remember might be useful if you plan to try multiple kernel version. If you used genkernel, it should be already in /boot, named kernel-genkernel-x6-version_number.
After having located the kernel, it's time to edit /boot/grub/grub.conf this way:

[Sagi446]

Weird, does Gentoo restart after you install it? Because I did that three times. Twice with the command-line and once with the GUI. This last time I picked to install GRUB. But after the whole process was done and I restarted (it didn't restart after the install) the Vista BL showed up not GRUB. I use the genkernel and I've linked NeoGRUB to it (I used /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.24-gentoo-r7) and it keeps giving me an Error 2.

I must be doing something horribly wrong here. >_>

[szczerb]

After grub is installed and configured you have to install it in the MBR.

It seems like you didn't read the handbook. Now would be a good time, as it is all described there.

BTW. Gentoo does not restart on it's own.

[monsm]

I have been booting windows XP from Grub for a long time without any problems.

I have this sort of setup:
1 Small boot partition with Linux kernel
2 almost unused Windows partition
3 Linux root partion

I had Windows on first and when installing Linux it was simple to add the windows boot to the list. In fdisk it is the boot partition that is set as bootable.

I have in the past had just 2 partions:
1. Windows Partition
2 Linux partion

I then used the Windows bootloader (i.e. the windows partition as bootable). Grub was installed in MBR on the Linux partition. This is an howto on how to do that: http://www.linuxsolved.com/linux-forums/linux-tutorials-how-tos/booting-linux-from-windows-boot-loader-how-to-dual-boot-a-t17.0.html

Again, in my view it is simpler to use Grub and let it boot windows, than the other way around. Might be some extra issues with Vista, I have never touched the thing.

Mons

[NathanZachary]

This is a nice tutorial on bootloader settings for Linux and Vista:

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_vista_installed_first.htm

Hope that helps.
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[keet]

Multibooting between Windows and Gentoo is ultra-easy, generally. You don't need to tell it where the Windows kernel is, because Windows uses a chainloader. All you need to do is tell it which drive and partition Windows is installed on. In my configuration, I have these two lines for my most recent kernel and Windows Vista:

title Gentoo Linux 2.6.27-r2
#The next line tells where the kernel is; here, it's on my first hard drive, on the second partition.
root (hd0,1)
#The next line tells it where in the directory structure of (hd0,1) the kernel actually is, defines the root directory (root=/dev/sda4, or my first SATA drive, fourth partition), and tells it to use a VGA console while it's booting.
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.27-gentoo-r2 root=/dev/sda4 vga=ask

title Windows Vista
#The next line tells simply where Windows is installed: first hard drive, first partition.
root (hd0,0)
#This tells it to use a chainloader, which is what Windows is supposed to do.
chainloader +1

In the second line, I'm telling it that the root partition is on the first hard drive, second partition (the numbering scheme here begins with 0). Then I tell it where to find my Linux root and kernel on the third line; the root partition is /dev/sda (sda4=first SATA drive, fourth partition; if I had an IDE/PATA drive, it would say hda4).

Windows is much simpler. Just tell it where Windows is installed, and tell it to use a chainloader. There's nothing complicated about it. Hopefully this helps!

[Sagi446]

For some odd reason, Gentoo recognizes my SATA drive as IDE/PATA (it uses hda not sda).

I think I know what my problem was, I never made the partition bootable.. wow that was really stupid of me. One last question though, the recommended setup is 100MB for Boot, 512MB for swap and rest for whatever I want, correct? I followed the ideal however just to be sure, should I make the 100MB /boot partition the bootable one?

[cyrillic]