[HailandKill]

Sorry to be a bore.. I realise that there a rather a lot of threads on this general topic, but my problem seems to be the opposite of everyone elses:

I'm having problems with a dual boot with Fedora Core 4 and Windows XP. I've been with google and I've found much advice, but still; no avail.

The GRUB interface comes up, and I can happily boot into FC4. But, on choosing WinXP GRUB simply goes

Code:

rootnoverify (hd0, 5)
chainloader +1
boot

Then it hangs and I never get the Windows Loader screen. I added the boot part to the grub.conf file, but it does exactly the same with or without the boot line.

My hard drives are as follows:

Code:

/dev/hda
  hda1 start:1 end:13 Size:102 type:ext3
  hda2 start:14 end: 5004 size: 39151 type: Extended
    hda5  start:14 end: 5004 size: 39151 type: ntfs
              start:5004 end:5005 size:8 type Free space

/dev/sda
  (an ntfs hard drive not being used by either O/S)

/dev/sdb
  sdb1 start:1 end:131 size:1024 linux-swap
  sdb2 start:132 end:5005 size:38233 ext3

Windows is on the primary hard drive, hda, and FC4 is on sdb.

The device.map is as follows

Code:

# this map was gernerated by anaconda
(fd0)       /dev/fd0
(hd0)       /dev/hda
(hd1)       /dev/sdb

Finally the current grub.conf

Code:

# stuff
#boot=/dev/hda
default=2
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora Core (2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp
   root (hd0,0)
   kernal /*directory*/ rhgb quiet
   initrd /*directory*
title Fedora Core-up
   root(hd0,0)
   kernal /*directory*/ rhgb quiet
   initrd /*directory*
title WinXP
  rootnoverify (hd0,5)
  chainloader +1
  boot

All boot info (i.e. /boot and windows' boot.ini) is held on the hd0/hda hard drive. Yet, Windows refuses to boot, or GRUB isn't doing things correctly.

[danleff]

Well, the problem is the same as others, with a hitch.

Your Grub file says that Fedora is on the first partition of the primary master drive, or hd0,0.

You also have Windows on hd0,5. This is either incorrect, or you installed Windows after Fedora on a logical partition on the primary master drive, or overwrote Windows, which should be on hd0,0, if it was the primary OS that you installed on your system.

Did you install Windows after Fedora? If not, you have an unusual scheme, or grub is trying to point to a fat32 partition (hd0,5) that has reminents of Windows on it.

What would really help is if you could post the output of ther command in Fedora;

/sbin/fdisk -l

Quote:

All boot info (i.e. /boot and windows' boot.ini) is held on the hd0/hda hard drive. Yet, Windows refuses to boot, or GRUB isn't doing things correctly.

If this is truely the case, there is a problem. Did you manually put the boot.ini file there, or is this a small boot partiton on the system?

Were you using a third party boot utility for Windows, like bootmagic?

If you manually put the boot.ini file there, then is the boot.ini file pointing to where the Windows system files really are?

Do this as root user. Also note that the -l tail of the fdisk command is the small letter "L" not the number 1.

Or, if you know what the partitions are on the drives, post this. I am also curious what is on sdb2.

[HailandKill]

I was following this guide: http://www.absoluteinsight.net/1397

And it's very well possible that I fecked the partitions...

hda is two partitions. The first physical one, hda1, contains /boot. The second, hda2, is the Windows partion.

sda hasn't got any O/S on, or any vital boot infomation. I don't think GRUB takes any notice of it. Which is good. At the moment it's a ntfs hard drive with some music and backup on.

sdb is again two partitions. The first physical, sdb1, is the linux-swap while sdb2 contains is the rest of the linux root.

GRUB will therefore be located on hda. I think.

I installed Windows first but made a 100mb partition physically before the windows installation. On this small partition I mounted /boot. I mounted the rest of FC4 on the SATA hard drive as can be seen HERE

Code:

# /sbin/fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 41.1 GB, 41174138880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5005 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/hda2              14        5004    40090207+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5              14        5004    40090176    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sda: 300.0 GB, 300090728448 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36483 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   ?       13578      119522   850995205    7  HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2   ?       45382       79243   271987362   74  Unknown
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3   ?       10499       10499           0   65  Novell Netware 386
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda4          167628      167631       25817+   0  Empty
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 41.1 GB, 41174138880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5005 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1         131     1052226   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb2             132        5005    39150405   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 262 MB, 262144000 bytes
16 heads, 32 sectors/track, 1000 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 512 * 512 = 262144 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *           1        1000      255983+   6  FAT16
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(998, 15, 32) logical=(999, 15, 31)

I had a USB stick in when getting the fdisk info, hence the last drive.

[danleff]

Change the Windows XP designation to;

title WinXP
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
chainloader +1
boot

Where the Windows partition is at hda5, which is (hd0,4).

Grub starts at hd0,0 so that.

hdai = hd0,0
hda2 = hd0,1
hda3 = hd0,2
hda4 = hd0,3
hda5 = hd0,4

[HailandKill]

I've tried changing it with 1 through 5. All of them have exactly the same results.

Would GRUB just hang if it couldn't find a boot.ini? Or would it complain?
[Edited by HailandKill on 2006-03-16 19:50:28]

[danleff]

Yes, it would hang. Did you change the boot order in the bios to boot from sata vs. pata at any point during the process of installing Fedora or Windows? Either the boot.ini file is not on hda5, or the boot.ini file is looking for the Windows system files in the wrong place. If you switched the bios boot order at some point during this process (say after installing Windows), then this would explain one possibility.

Is the boot.ini file on hda5? The way that you set up the system is not correct (in my opinion), as you have the Linux /boot directory on the opposite drive from the Linux installation. This is why it is important to know where the boot.ini file is relative to the way that Windows sees it and points to the correct Windows system files on hda5.

The usual senario is to install Windows on one drive (such as the primary master), then Linux on another drive, when using a two drive setup.

I can't remember in Fedora, but in Mandriva, you can view the NTFS filesystems out of the box with the Linux file manager.

And just to clarify, did you install Windows before or after Fedora?

[HailandKill]

I haven't changed the boot sequence in the bios, no.

This is actually the second attempt and getting a dual boot to work. Originally I did have Windows and Linux or completely seperate hard drives, there was no /boot on the windows hard drive.

This however just caused windows to boot. So, I found this new guide... the one I followed.

Windows was installed before Fedora Core.

I cannot view ntfs file systems with fedora, unfortunately. I tried to update the kernel using an rpm from http://www.linux-ntfs.org/ but that made things turn for the worse.

I had booted up in Knoppix before hand, looked at hda5 and couldn't find the boot.ini file... so it is possible that got deleted somewhere along the lines when I installed fedora core.

Attempting to boot a Windows XP install CD (I'm considering just starting again. I won't loose anything) seems to fail now as well, is that the linux partions causing that?

[danleff]

Quote:

I haven't changed the boot sequence in the bios, no.

Good. Resist attempts to do so, if you are comfortable booting from hda, the pata (ide) drive.

Quote:

This is actually the second attempt and getting a dual boot to work. Originally I did have Windows and Linux or completely seperate hard drives, there was no /boot on the windows hard drive.

This may explain some things. The thing that I did not like about the article that you referenced, is that maybe it was not totally clear. This usually opens up a can of worms, but there are two schools of thought on dual booting. I always install Grub onto the MBR. The second technique is to make a Linux /boot partition on the same hard drive as Linux is being installed on, not another physical hard drive that has Windows installed on it.

If you make a universal dual boot partition, then it should be fat32, I believe, not Linux. It should always be on the first partition of the main drive where Windows is installed to. This is so Windows and Linux can see both.

Quote:

I had booted up in Knoppix before hand, looked at hda5 and couldn't find the boot.ini file... so it is possible that got deleted somewhere along the lines when I installed fedora core.

This is where it gets complicated. Fedora should not touch the Windows partition. however, depending what you did with partitioning, you may have trashed the real Windows partition, assuming the partitioning scheme did not change (except the /boot partition). If you used Fedora to partition the Linux drive and inserted the additional /boot partition on the Windows drive, this would explain some things.

Rules of thumb. Never attempt to add a partition to the beginning of an intact partitioned drive. Only add logical or primary partitons after...to the end of the drive. Secondly, only use one partitoning method/program, either a third party utility, like (but not limited to) PartitionMagic, or Fedora's utility only on free space at the end of a drive already holding previous partitions, or on a seperate hard drive that you want to dedicate to Linux.

Quote:

I cannot view ntfs file systems with fedora, unfortunately. I tried to update the kernel using an rpm from http://www.linux-ntfs.org/ but that made things turn for the worse.

If you already did not realize this, you need to use the ntfs rpm that exactly matches your kernel version, as per the installation instructions on the site.

As per the instructions

Quote:

It is important to install exactly the same version of NTFS kernel module as the kernel you have installed. Below are some simple instructions to help you find the file you need.

[HailandKill]

Ok. Considering I've royally fecked things now... I might as well start again.

Is there a good guide to follow anywhere?

[HailandKill]

Right, I actually have managed to fix it.

I got rid of the Windows partition with QTParted in Fedora Core, then I unplugged all of my hard drives but hda, just as a precaution, booted up in windows and reinstalled it.

Then, I booted up with FC4 and intalled that. When it came to configuring GRUB, I told it not to install on the MBR.

On the first boot, this unsurprisingly, went straight into Windows. In XP I fiddled with boot.ini in an attempt to get the NTLDR to boot Linux. However, I needed to get some GRUB info. So, I rebooted and changed to boot from my linux hard drive (i.e. I changed the boot sequence). This didn't work, but I booted up in linix recovery and used

Code:

grub-install --rechecl /dev/hda

I then went back to my original boot seqeunce and low and behold I had GRUB and the choice of FC4 or XP, in both cases they boot.

It happened by accident, and was probably a long way of just installing GRUB to the MBR... But now it works.