How to install BackTrack 3 Final from the shell, dual boot Win XP
I managed to install Back|Track 3 Final
- in a dual boot configuration with Win XP
- without touching my existing MBR
- on an IBM Thinkpad X41, keeping the IBM recovery partition functional
- installing Grub boot loader on the boot partition, not the MBR
This is a hard disk install, not a live install of Backtrack, for those who do not want to run
BackTrack from a CD or USB device.
In this Howto the 60 GB hard disk has got two existing partitions, the Win XP ntfs partition and
the IBM recovery partition:
/dev/sda1 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 Compaq diagnostics
If you are following this Howto on a Win XP machine that is not a Thinkpad, you might only have
one existing NTFS partition and your Devices (sda2, sda3, ...) will be different, so you need to
adjust the commands accordingly.
What you need
Computer with Win XP installed
BackTrack 3 Final iso on a CD or DVD or USB stick to boot from
Internet connection to download Grub
Backup
Back up your entire system, there is no guarantee that it will not break.
Defrag your XP NTFS partition
While still in Win XP, defrag your NTFS drive. You will resize it to make space for the BackTrack
partitions.
Boot BackTrack live from CD, DVD or USB device
Unmount the existing partitions, the BackTrack Live has automatically mounted them.
Code:
umount /dev/sda1
umount /dev/sda2
Run QTParted to resize the NTFS partition
KDE menu > System > QTParted
Resize sda1 to make free space for BackTrack and save changes. Exit QTParted.
Note: On this 60 GB drive I reduced the Win XP partition to about 10 GB, leaving enough space for
a BackTrack, a /boot, a swap and a data partition.
The data partition would this way be able to hold for example some wordlists for WPA cracking.
Create Linux partitions for BackTrack
Code:
fdisk /dev/sda
Create a primary partition number sda3 1 GB in size, this will be swap
change type of primary partition sda3 to 82
Create an extended partition number sda4, use rest of free disk space
Create a new partition sda5 100 MB, this will be for /boot
Create a new partition sda6 9 GB, this will be for Backtracks root file system /
Create a new partition sda7 of remaining space, this will be for data like WPA wordlists
write partition table
quit fdisk
Format the new partitions
Code:
mkswap /dev/sda3
swapon /dev/sda3
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda5
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda6
mkfs.vfat /dev/sda7
Mount the new partitions so you can install BackTrack on them
Code:
mkdir /mnt/backtrack
mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/backtrack/
mkdir /mnt/backtrack/boot/
mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/backtrack/boot/
mkdir /mnt/bacltrack/boot/boot
mkdir /mnt/sda7
mount /dev/sda7 /mnt/sda7
Install BackTrack files
Code:
cp /boot/vmlinuz /mnt/backtrack/boot/boot/
cp --preserve -R /{bin,dev,home,pentest,root,usr,etc,lib,opt,sbin,var} /mnt/backtrack/
mkdir /mnt/backtrack/{mnt,proc,sys,tmp}
mount --bind /dev/ /mnt/backtrack/dev/
mount -t proc proc /mnt/backtrack/proc/
Connect to the Internet
Using for example KDE menu > Internet > Wireless Assistant
Download and install Grub on the /boot partition and configure the menu.lst
Code:
cd /mnt/sda7
wget ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/extra/grub/grub-0.97-i486-6.tgz
installpkg grub-0.97-i486-6.tgz
grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/backtrack/root/ /dev/sda5
vi /mnt/backtrack/boot/grub/menu.lst
Code:
default 1
timeout 30
title Backtrack 3 KDE
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=791 root=/dev/sda6 ro autoexec=xconf;kdm
boot
title Backtrack 3
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz vga=791 root=/dev/sda6 ro
boot
Making the Dual Boot
I'm using a USB stick mounted on /mnt/sdb1 to transfer the following file to Win XP. But you
could also mount sda1 or sda7 and creat the .mbr file there.
Code:
dd if=/dev/sda5 of=/mnt/sdb1/backtrack3.mbr bs=512 count=1
Now reboot into Win XP and copy the backtrack3.mbr file in the root of your c:\ drive.
Now clear the read-only attribute of c:\boot.ini to be able to edit this file in notepad.
In notepad add the following line at the end of the boot.ini file:
Code:
c:\backtrack3.mbr="Backtrack 3"
Now you can activate the read-only attribute of c:\boot.ini again.
Reboot into your new BackTrack 3 Final
When you reboot now you can check that pressing your blue Access IBM button will still boot you
into the IBM Recovery console.
Otherwise you will now have two boot options given by boot.ini, Win XP and BackTrack 3. Select
BackTrack 3 and this will bring up the Grub boot menu, now boot into BackTrack 3 KDE.
