Dual Boot

[deanwarren 0]

Hi All

 

Im new to Linux, so please bear with me.

 

I've just partition my Win2000 system to allow for Fedora Linux and successfully installed Fedora (what a great OS - very impressed!). How ever, I couldn't work out how to get the Grub Loaded to boot my Win2000 installation. It just executes chainloaded and waits!

 

Any advice or questions welcome?

 

Dean

[shobhit 0]

what exactly are the contents of your grub.conf file

it is in the directory /boot/grub/grub.conf

it should have a section for DOS

 

title dos

rootnoverify (hd0,0)

chainloader +1

 

[danleff 0]

There is a documented bug with Fedora and installing it next to Win XP (and I assume Windows 2000) when you allow Fedora to make it's partitions next to an NTFS partition.

 

Is Win 2000 on an NTFS partition?

 

The solutions are not what I feel are user friendly for a Linux newbie. If this is the case in your system, you can try a couple of things.

 

1. Make a change in the bios to change how the bios reads your hard drive. This may work - it has for some and is the easiest solution. Linux likes to read many hard drives in LBA mode, so if your bios detects your hard drive as "auto" rather than LBA, some have had luck just changing this designation in the bios.

 

If your Windows install is "mission critical" for you, then I consider the technique somewhat risky.

 

2. You can use the Windows bootloader to boot Linux (Fedora) by making some additions to the boot.ini file. This requires some knowledge of manipulating the boot.ini bootloader from within Fedora and adding an appropriate entry for Fedora, using some commands from within Fedora.

 

3. If you elect not to keep Fedora, then you can restore your MBR (master boot record) using the Windows rescue mode (recovery console), or some have done so with a Windows boot disk.

 

Some have had no trouble with the dual boot senario at all.

 

Let us know what you would like to do and we can try some methods. But first, let's make sure what your grub file says for the Win boot commands, as shobhit asked about.