Asrock (others?) Bios "boot menu" question

[gorgerax]

I have an Asrock mobo in my AM2 X2 4200+ system and a Dual 774 VSTA in my son's C2D box. At boot-up, both have a F2 for setup and F11 for Boot Menu options. Pressing F11 brings up what appear to be all the drives in your system...floppy, CD/DVD, HD, USB, etc. TAb down to select one, hit enter and supposedy boot from the selected drive.

I'm trying to think of a way to simplify building a system with multiple OS's. If I put them all on a seperate HD, using this Boot menu would work. My question is, if I simply PARTITION a hd into 3 or 4 partitions, will the Boot menu "see" the partitions?

 

[TurtleMan]

My question is, if I simply PARTITION a hd into 3 or 4 partitions, will the Boot menu "see" the partitions?

No, it won't.

t-man

 

[chrone]

nope. it can only see the drives.

perhaps the most secure way is to install each os on a different hard drive.

 

[gorgerax]

nope. it can only see the drives.

perhaps the most secure way is to install each os on a different hard drive.

Perhaps...I have messed around with a couple of free boot managers; gave up on the Windows boot manager (too confusing). What works well right now is that after I installed Ubuntu onto it's own Partition, it comes up with its own boot manager and shows all my partitions and OS's. I ust tab to the one I want, hit enter and presto!

Thanks!

 

[chrone]

yes indeed. almost all major linux distro has this feature with the grubs or lilo.


btw just becarefull when deleting other os partition on the same hard drive as you don't want to loose all your data just because you want to free some space up. i've done once with windows and ubuntu in one single hdd and lost all of my data in that disk drive just because i want to free some space by deleting ubuntu partition. lol! i was so stupid at the moment.. and still am.

now i place ubuntu on an old 4gb hdd for my own convenience. hehe 😀

 

[gorgerax]

yes indeed. almost all major linux distro has this feature with the grubs or lilo.


btw just becarefull when deleting other os partition on the same hard drive as you don't want to loose all your data just because you want to free some space up. i've done once with windows and ubuntu in one single hdd and lost all of my data in that disk drive just because i want to free some space by deleting ubuntu partition. lol! i was so stupid at the moment.. and still am.

now i place ubuntu on an old 4gb hdd for my own convenience. hehe 😀

That is mainly why I have box setup the way it is. My main SATAII 250 GB drive is partitioned seprate ones for each OS I want to dink around with. ALL my data files, MP3's, Pix, movies, etc. are on a seperate 400GB drive. SO if something does mess up my OS I really don't lose anything other than the time to reinstall the image. I'm sure there are other/better solutions but that as smart as I am! :lol:

BTW...I am TOTAL noob when it comes to Linux. I must admit Ubuntu is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. Is there an"easier" distro? I guess I'm looking for the simplicity/similarity of Windows with more stability and free/low cost!

Thanks

 

[womble]

Tried Ubuntu a couple of times and I can't get on with it either, a few years ago I'd have been happy but I suspect I've got a bit lazy in my old age.

I'd highly recommend PCLinuxOS. Play with the live cd for a while to see if you like it, if you do there's an install icon on the desktop.

Package management is easy via synaptic and most things are all set up for you already i.e. flash, java and multimedia. A nice control centre too for setting up wireless networking and stuff. Forums seem qute friendly too.

PCLinuxOS

Hope this helps.

Karl

 

[gorgerax]

Tried Ubuntu a couple of times and I can't get on with it either, a few years ago I'd have been happy but I suspect I've got a bit lazy in my old age.

I'd highly recommend PCLinuxOS. Play with the live cd for a while to see if you like it, if you do there's an install icon on the desktop.

Package management is easy via synaptic and most things are all set up for you already i.e. flash, java and multimedia. A nice control centre too for setting up wireless networking and stuff. Forums seem qute friendly too.

PCLinuxOS

Hope this helps.

Karl

Thanks Karl. I fear I have the same affliction (laziness in old age!)

PC Linux looks like what I am looking for. Having a bit of a challenge getting the Live CD to work...I have integrated graphics chip on this mobo. I'll play with it some more tomorrow.

Thanks again!

 

[o1die]

I use a dual boot partition with win2k and vista 64 bit. Had to create 2 partitions first, then install vista, win2k, then vista again. I get a choice of windows, or "earlier version of windows" at bootup. I don't know if it will work with more than 2 partitions. You must install vista again, as win2k will remove some boot up files of vista.

 

[chrone]

try this distro:
pclinuxos
mandriva
fedora
xubuntu

i used to love fedora core 4, the fedora core 5 is good but i hate the software manager which makes me to connect to internet first.