Dual HDD, XP Home and Fedora Core 4...tried all in forum

[Knad 0]

Hello,

 

First off i have never used linux before in my life, i have used all versions of windows from 3.1 to XP Pro, also DOS, but this Linux sounds good...and well isnt microsoft so i wanted to give it a go...

 

So...I have 2 Hard Drives (IDE):

HDD 1 (hda) - 80gb, NTFS, Windows XP Home

HDD 2 (hdb) - Did a standard install of fedora core 4 on this

 

 

Problem:

I cannot boot into fedora

 

Tried:

1 - boot.ini point to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\Linux......ust gives me totally black screen with HDD light on, no HDD sounds though

 

2 - Lunux Rescue - make a boot.lnx file as in other posts....c;opy to floppy.....put in C: on windows...add to boot.ini.....get black screen with the underscore flashing in the top left (no HDD light)

 

3 - Update Fedora Install.....try and tell it to put GRUB on MBR (i know it says not to)......did not do this as it said no change to kernal ???

 

4 - grub-install /dev/fd0 ... failed, cant remember why

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks

/Knad

 

p.s. i did fdisk -l and this is roughly what i got (from memory):

 

hda - NTFS

hdb1 - /boot ...linuz pertition of some sort, small...seems correct for boot partition

hdb2 - /...seems to be main fedora bit

[danleff 0]

In order to help and understand what exactly you have done, we need complete descriptions of what you did. Also, what reference did you use to set up dual booting using the boot.ini file? Can you provide a link?

 

There are several methods to add the Linux boot sector to the boot.ini. They can be confusing.

 

But, what you have is the following;

 

1. Windows XP on your primary master drive. The Windows bootloader is on this drive, where the bios is set to boot from first.

 

2. You have Fedora on a second hard drive, the primary slave. You chose the default partitioning method during the installation, which places a small boot partition on the second drive. However, the bios is still set to boot from the first drive, so there is no Linux boot, as that bootloader is on the second drive.

 

In order to use the Windows boot.ini, you must correctly reference the /boot partition on the second drive when doing the dd command to copy the Linux bootsector to the boot.lnx file that you placed on your C: drive, or hda1.

 

What exact dd command sequence did you use? Did you reference hdb1, or hdb2?

 

Quote:

boot.ini point to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\Linux......ust gives me totally black screen with HDD light on, no HDD sounds though

 

Where did you get this set of instructions? What is the total line command, as I don't know what \linux.....ust means. Using the raw boot.ini command sequence like this is only correct under certain circumstances.

 

Quote:

Lunux Rescue - make a boot.lnx file as in other posts....c;opy to floppy.....put in C: on windows...add to boot.ini.....get black screen with the underscore flashing in the top left (no HDD light)

 

Just getting into linux rescue gives you a command line with a very limited set of command options. It does not mount the total Linux partition. A step in the process is missed. A lot of folks miss this point. If you then did the dd command, what partition did you reference? The /boot partition (hdb1) or the linux partition (hdb2)?

 

Quote:

Update Fedora Install.....try and tell it to put GRUB on MBR (i know it says not to)......did not do this as it said no change to kernal ???

 

A common mistake is also to trash the original installation and start over. Of course, when you said that you told grub to use the MBR, was that hda, or hdb? Where does it say not to do this?

 

Again, are you referencing one article or post, several, or several solutions mentioned on a thread?

 

Excuse me for being so technical and picky, but it's frustrating to see users not stick to one plan. Trying several methods from different sources is not a good idea. Too many folks trash there systems this way.

 

 

[Knad 0]

Sorry. Thanks for reply..i will try to answer:

 

 

What exact dd command sequence did you use? Did you reference hdb1, or hdb2?

firstly i used: chroot /mnt/sysimage

then i used: dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=boot.lnx bs=512 count=1

 

I then transferred this to a floppy (using mcopy) and put

this into my C: on windows (the file (boot.lnx) read as

1kb...is this right?) and referanced it in boot.ini as:

c:\boot.lnx="Fedora Core 4"

 

Where did you get this set of instructions? What is the total line command, as I don't know what \linux.....ust means. Using the raw boot.ini command sequence like this is only correct under certain circumstances.:

 

boot.ini : multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\Linux="Fedora Core 4"

 

--------------

 

I installed fedora the first time, keeping MS bootloader in the MBR. I tried many different methods on different sites and forums, to no avail (whoops, i noticed you said this was bad idea)

So... I reinstalled fedora last night (re-partition my hdb), and tried this time to let it overwrite the MBR, but it still boots as the MS one is still there...

 

I hope i have answered some of your questions, and would be very grateful for any help.

 

Preferably i would like to keep XP installed how it is on hda (master drive), and would like to install fedora on my slave. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

Adam

 

 

[danleff 0]

Quote:

then transferred this to a floppy (using mcopy) and put
this into my C: on windows (the file (boot.lnx) read as
1kb...is this right?) and referanced it in boot.ini as:
c:\boot.lnx="Fedora Core 4"

Nope, the boot.lnx file should be 512 bytes, as in;

dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=boot.lnx bs=512 count=1

The dd command should have copied the first 512 bytes to a file.

OK, but let's try an experiment. This is not the solution.

Change the boot order in the bios to the second drive, say HDD0 to HDD1. What happens.

If grub loads and works, fine, we can move on. If it does work, see if you can get into Fedora. Then see what happens when you try to get into Windows from grub. I think that we know the answer to this, but let's see what happens.

The problem is now that you have tried multiple ways of installing grub, you have grub both on the /boot partition and on the MBR, my guess is, on the hdb drive. I bet on one attempt, you chose the MBR on the hdb drive, not the hda drive.

[Knad 0]

 

Change the boot order in the bios to the second drive, say HDD0 to HDD1. What happens.

 

I have just tried this, and it says:

 

Verifying DMI Pool Data....

_

 

Then just sits there doing nothing, no HDD activity.

 

Thanks for all your help so far

/Adam

[danleff 0]

Sometimes you get the Verifying DMI Pool Data.... message on a soft reboot after making any changes like this to the bios.

 

What happens when you do a hard reboot, in other words, allow the system to completely shut down, wait 3 minutes, then try the boot. This allows the system to completely reset.

 

However, I suspect that there are other issues, if this does not work.

 

I have not asked yet, but what make and model system or motherboard is this?

[Knad 0]

UPDATE:

 

After reading other threads, i tried to recreate a grub.bin (or whatever you wish to name it e.g. boot.lnx) using (from the 'Booting Linux' section os http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/2337):

 

dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=grub.bin bs=512 count=1

 

Then adding this to boot.ini (c:\grub.bin="Linux")

 

When i rebooted and selected 'Linux' i got a screen with:

 

GRUB _

 

In the top left, and it just stopped there.

 

More info:

 

when i type:

cd /boot/grub

cat grub.conf

 

I can see that it seems to be pointing to the correct place for Fedora and windows, but i am slightly worried as it says (i guess the '#' means its quoted out, but just it says:

#root hdb (or #boot hdb ... not sure)

I am pretty sure this is what it says, but i do not know how to print or save this to s floppy to use in windows to post it (linux noob)

 

Thanks for any help

Adam

[danleff 0]

What is important to know, is exactly where is grub?

 

Since I always place everything on one partition, so that grub is on the Linux root partition, I am going by what seems correct for you. O'Reilly's article assumes the same.

 

You noted earlier that your original boot.lnx file was 1 kb.

 

If your new grub.bin file is the same size, and by the last post that you made, grub is on hdbv2, not hdb1.

 

So, if the above are true, try the dd command to copy the first 512 bytes to a grb.bin file and place this in the windows root directory, or c:. Do you have 512 bytes now?

[Knad 0]

I have my grub.bin file as 512 bytes, and i am getting GRUB _ when i select Linux at boot.

 

When i go into linux-rescue then grub, and type:

 

grub> root (hd1, <TAB>

 

It tells me my first partition is small and '/boot', and the other one is large and just got a '/'

 

I THINK grub is installed on hdb0, with fedora on hdb1.

 

How do i print out, or save to a floppy the output of 'fdisk -1', then i could output this to you.

 

Thanks for your help, sorry to be a pain

Adam

[danleff 0]

Don't get grub's values mixed up with partition designations. Here is the output of my fdisk;

 

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/sda1 * 1 6202 49817533+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda2 6203 8752 20482875 83 Linux

/dev/sda3 8753 8879 1020127+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

 

 

(note that I have a sata drive, so this is why the sda, rather than hda, as in an ide drive)

 

You can quicly see what the root partition is with the command df, which should output the root drive mounted, say,

 

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on

/dev/sda2 19840924 3222140 15594644 18% /

 

In my case the / is mounted on sda2.

 

Also, note that the * denotes the boot partition in fdisk, in my case, sda1.

[Knad 0]

Finally it works after alot of fiddling with grub.conf i got it to work it thought it was on my primary HDD rather than secondry.

 

My solution:

 

BIOS boot to secondry HDD (HDD-1)

GRUB loaded, with linux and referancing HDD-0 MBR for windows

 

All working now, and upgraded to FC5.

 

Thanks for all your help

 

/Adam