Boot Magic 8 won't start Puppy

[Freyfrey]

I have two hard drives installed--primary master and slave. I have Boot Magic 8. On the primary master is installed Win98. On the slave Puppy installed with the Universal Installer.

I can boot to Win98, no problem using Boot Magic. But when I try to boot to Puppy, Boot Magic returns an error that it can't find io.sys and there is no operating system.

I was hoping that this was going simple--but it seems no! I seemed to have missed a major part of the install?

Sorry if this question has been asked somewhere else ( a million times) --believe me I've been lurking around the forum for quite some time and can't find an answer that I can understand.

[rcrsn51]

The error message about io.sys suggests that Boot Magic is looking for a version of Windows on your second hard drive. How did you install Puppy there? Did you also install the GRUB boot loader? You probably need to configure Boot Magic to look for a Linux-type OS on the second drive.

[marksouth2000]

Boot Magic is unknown to me. What I do know is that you don't need it. You have several simpler options.

Install GRUB to the MBR of the master disk;
Make a GRUB boot floppy;
Make a WakePup floppy;
Make a smart boot manager floppy;
Install smart boot manager to the MBR of the master disk;

All those solutions are free, simple to set up, known to work in a wide range of situations, and have been documented many, many times in this forum - use the search button.

Simplest is probably WakePup or SBM. I find SBM in the MBR of the first hard disk on the first channel, together with each distro's own bootloader (GRUB in the case of Puppy) on the root of the distro's system partition is the simplest way to live.

Cheers,
Mark

[Freyfrey]

Simplest is probably WakePup or SBM. I find SBM in the MBR of the first hard disk on the first channel, together with each distro's own bootloader (GRUB in the case of Puppy) on the root of the distro's system partition is the simplest way to live....

Since I already own Boot Magic I of course wanted to use that. If it can save me lengthy downloads on my painfully slow dial-up connection so much the better. I've looked at the other options already--and I may have to stick with booting from WakePup if all else fails. I just really liked the idea of a 'one click' start up with the Boot Magic ap rather than having to baby sit (puppy sit?) while the computer starts up.

Other than this little (non) problem I've found Puppy is a very well housetrained little critter.

[Sit Heel Speak]

WinGrub (GRUB in the MBR) is one-click (actually, one arrow-key-tap), and if you don't tap an arrow key it will default (after your specified time elapses) to whichever OS you specify in its menu.lst config file.

[Freyfrey]

I tried WinGrub with no better results. I find the instructions to it not very helpful. Grrr... I feel like there is one thing I am missing and if I can figure it out it will all come together. In the meantime, wakepup works.

[rcrsn51]

The thing to understand about Boot Magic is that it doesn't actually launch an operating system. It just transfers control to the boot loader program that was installed with the OS. In the case of Linux, that might be LILO or GRUB. The good news is that Puppy has all the tools needed to install GRUB onto your second hard drive. Then you should be able to add Puppy to your Boot Magic menu. If you want to try this, post back for more details.

[Freyfrey]

If you want to try this, post back for more details.

That must be the thing I've been missing. I'll do a search on that too! I thought I had installed GRUB (comes with Puppy, right?) but doesn't look like I did it right.

edited for: typo

[Sit Heel Speak]

Puppy is still a work-in-progress and doesn't always guess right. If you have further problems, I suggest you post your menu.lst and maybe we can spot an error.