OSDev.org

Hello there OSDev Community!

I have a question about adding my Operating System to the boot somehow.

I have multiple OSes installed (Windows XP, Windows 7, Ubuntu, and Mac on an IBM thinkpad) I can all boot from those.
But now the school has disabled the Boot Device List in the BIOS (I don't know the password).
So to solve this, I wanted to add my OS to the boot list. Is there any way to do this??

Maybe just ADD it to the list, not install it on the internal hard drive. I could put it on an external hard drive or keep it on the floppy disk. I have Windows 7 and Ubuntu installed on the External and they work, I did that because the school won't allow other OSes on internal HD, but on external HDs they do.

SO. Any way to add my OS to the boot list so it will add it to the OS boot list?

Thanks,

Mac

You have GRUB installed, right? If your OS is only a file, you can copy it on a partition, probably the Ubuntu one, because GRUB has native support for ext2/3, then add an entry in menu.lst to be able to load it. You can do it without editing menu.lst by typing "c" when GRUB loads, but then you have to enter the path to the kernel each time.

Grunt wrote:You have GRUB installed, right? If your OS is only a file, you can copy it on a partition, probably the Ubuntu one, because GRUB has native support for ext2/3, then add an entry in menu.lst to be able to load it. You can do it without editing menu.lst by typing "c" when GRUB loads, but then you have to enter the path to the kernel each time.

Well to boot with my operating system I write the boot.bin to the floppy and copy kernel.bin to the floppy, those are the files that my OS consists of. I just installed Ubuntu and Windows to one partition on my External HD, and Ubuntu is in a folder, Windows 7 installs tons of system folders on it though. How do I load GRUB? By the way, here are the formats for my HDs:

Internal Partition 1 (C:) (Windows XP): NTFS
Internal Partition 2 (D:) (No OS, just files): NTFS
External Partition 1 (F:): NTFS
External Partition 2 (G): FAT32
External Partition 3 (H): FAT32
External Partition 4 (I): Mac OS Leopard

So would the GRUB be on C:?

Thanks

In that case, it won't work. You would need to make your kernel multiboot compliant before attempting anything.

So I'm just going to have to keep using the Floppy Drive I guess, unless I become really good so I know what the heck I'm changing with my operating system's critical files