Installed Fedora Core5 , pc only starts to windows - now what

[bigmark100 0]

Hi there,

 

Im new to linux, Ive just installed Fedora Core5 on to my XP pc.

The pc has 2 drives,

drive 1 (120gb) = nfts

drive 2 (220gb) = 100gb nfts, 120 unallocated

 

So chose to install Fedora on drive 2, in the unpartitioned half of the 2nd drive. All went fine, I chose all default options in the boot loader, but now it boots straight into windows.

 

Ive tried booting off the fedora disk , and changing the boot loader options, but it keeps reporting that

"No Kernel packages were installed on your system".

 

I now have a new drive, and its type is RAW.

Windows shows the entire drive as empty. Ive not tried writing to it.

 

So where do I go from here?

Ive done some googling - but there is so much out there, and none seems to answer my question.

 

also

 

How do I get to the unix kernel - so I can run commands like

df?

 

I have no boot.ini file on my system.

 

 

 

 

[danleff 0]

Quote:

So chose to install Fedora on drive 2, in the unpartitioned half of the 2nd drive. All went fine, I chose all default options in the boot loader, but now it boots straight into windows.

When you installed fedora to the second drive, you accepted the default options. Most likely what you did was install Grub to the second hard drive, so it is not resident on your boot drive, the primary master that the system is set to boot from, the Windows drive. Windows boots up because there is no reference to Fedora on the boot drive, the primary master, which is set to boot in the bios.

This question keeps coming up and folks do not seem to understand the concept of booting.

Fedora assumes that you installed on the boot drive and defaults loading the grub bootloader to the drive that it is installed on, unless you tell it otherwise.

To get Fedora to boot, you need to have grub installed on the boot drive set in the bios to boot first.

Quote:

Ive tried booting off the fedora disk , and changing the boot loader options, but it keeps reporting that
"No Kernel packages were installed on your system".

By just booting from the disk and choosing linux rescue, you are just in rescue mode, not the root of Fedora. It can't find the kernel files properly, so the error that you are getting.

Try getting to the root Fedora filesystem, after using the rescue disk, by typing in the console chroot /mnt/sysimage

This gets you to the root of the Fedora filesystem.

Then try typing in the console grub-install /dev/hda

Note: space between grub-install and /dev/hda

DO NOT type hda1, you want the MBR of the hda drive, not the hda1 partition.

Reboot the system and see if you get grub, with the option to boot both Fedora and Windows.

The other issue is that grub defaults to only a few seconds before booting the first listed OS. Depending on what you chose to boot first (hopefully not Windows) during the installation of Grub, that OS will boot quickly.

Let us know what happens, then we can change the timeout of the booting via Grub.

Essentually what you want to do is get into the /boot/grub/menu.lst file and change the line that starts with timeout from 10 to 50.

[bigmark100 0]

Thanks very much danleff. I will try this when home tonight.

 

it is true - I did not understand the whole boot concept. I have done some reading up, but not many people make things as clear as you have.

 

 

 

[bigmark100 0]

Hi there danleff. That worked a treat.

thanks again for your help.

 

i managed to change the timeout , too.

 

I am going to need to set windows as my default os, as my girlfriend also uses the computer and ive still go to get the os finely tuned before introducing her to "change".

 

is this done by changing the default in the menu.lst file from 0 to 1?

 

 

[danleff 0]

Glad that you got it going. The answer to your final question is yes. Change the value from 0 to 1.

[igotmybfg 0]

I'm having the same issue, but with a slightly different system setup:

 

drive 0 (master): 300gb ntfs, windows xp

drive 1 (slide): 60gb ext3, fc5

 

I accepted the default settings in the installer because I wanted to give LVM a try. After installation, the PC only boots into Windows XP.

 

I ran the FC5 rescue, did the chroot /mnt/sysimage, and tried grub-install /dev/hda:

 

$ chroot /mnt/sysimage

$ grub-install /dev/hda

 

and got the following error:

 

/dev/hdb1 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.

 

df, on the chrooted system, gives:

 

/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 mounted on /

/dev/hdb1 mounted on /boot

 

Any ideas?

[igotmybfg 0]

slide = slave, typo

[danleff 0]

I just found this issue myself. It seems that there is a bug in Grub in Fedora in some system configurations. If you feel adventurous and can afford to possibly muck up your system, you can try the fix. Let me know if this is a mission critical system or not and if you would like to give this a try.

[fedora_noobie 0]

Hi,

I'm having a similar issue with a dual boot machine.I have only one drive

320 gb Maxtor partitioned as follows:

80 gb- windows 2000 professional

Fedora core 5 installed on remainder with default options.

Fc5 installed fine and grub shows the win2k(other) os,but when I try to boot into windows I get a splash screen for win2k,then a stop error(blue screen)with an error code and INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE message.I think I mucked up my windows bootloader by placing grub on mbr.If I boot into recovery console for win2k and run fixmbr command will I mess up my Linux os?

[danleff 0]

This is a large hard drive. Did you install this hard drive yourself, or did it come with the system? Some system bios' can't handle these large drives effectively without some modifications.

 

Is it a PATA hard drive (IDE), or sata?

 

If it is an ide drive, try getting into the bios and changing the drive detection from "auto" to "LBA" and see if you can boot either OS.

 

Please post the make and model of your system, or if it is a self built system, the make and model of the motherboard.

 

Also, if you can, get into a Fedora root console as root user and type in;

 

/sbin/fdisk -l (the small letter L for the -l, not the number 1). if possible post the output.

 

...and yes, if you write over the MBR with fixboot and fixmbr, you will not be able to boot Linux, except with the recovery mode, by using the 1st Fedora install cd to get in.

[geoffs 0]

Seems I'm not the only one with the problem. I've installed Fedora Core 5 from the DVD just like the rest of you only to find that it wouldnt boot to Grub or Linux, only to Windows.

After reading through a few forums I tried using Linux rescue. After trying different approaches from different forums it appears that despite the fact that I ticked install grub to hda, it has installed it on hd1,0.

I have reinstall Fedora and grub from my DVD several times with the same result.

The computer I am trying to install on has 2 40gB hard drives, hda has windows xp and one day hdb will have FC5. The motherboard is an Asrock K7S41GX. I built the system from bits as my play thing so as not to mess up my work machine. I am however sick of installing windows and linux.

In the last 3 months I've tried Debian, FC4 and now FC5 and not been able to get one of them to work successfully. Surely linux cant be that hard?

Any assistance gratefully accepted.

Thanks

[ksclps 0]

Hello forum....I too am a newbie with Fedora 5 installed on a single drive (120gb with about 1/2 partitioned to XP pro) and the rest dedicazted to FC5. I was able to boot into the loader which prompted me to select the OS I wanted. For about one day, it worked flawlessly. I could choose XP or Linx. Then, today, after hitting "any" key to get to the loader, the system ignored my key press and always boots to Linux. WHile this is not a problem for me (grin), my wife desperately wants the access to XP on her system. Any ideas?

 

I read the post about the timing issue for the boot loader and how to go to /boot/grub/menu.lst and change it from 10 to 20. Mine is currently about 3 according to the boot screen. When attempting to use cat to view the file, it says permission denied. My shell prompt currently displays my user name "ksclps@localhost ~]$ Trying to log in as root gets me a "incorrect" return. I have changed to password to root and entered that to no avail. Any help here would also be appreciated so that I may edit the timer.

 

John

[danleff 0]

Too many posts on this thread to respond, without confusing others. Let's take one at a time.

 

kscips;

 

Quote:

I was able to boot into the loader which prompted me to select the OS I wanted. For about one day, it worked flawlessly. I could choose XP or Linx. Then, today, after hitting "any" key to get to the loader, the system ignored my key press and always boots to Linux.

 

Has anything changed sine the initial boot was working?

 

You should not have to hit "any key to continue."

 

This leads me to believe something has changed. I assume you get this as the system tries to boot either Windows or FC5.

 

Do you get the initial boot menu, the system tries to boot, then you get the error, which then you hit "any key to continue?"

 

Are there any error messages preceeding pressing any key to continue?

 

You did not change the boot order in the bios, did you?

 

 

Quote:

I read the post about the timing issue for the boot loader and how to go to /boot/grub/menu.lst and change it from 10 to 20. Mine is currently about 3 according to the boot screen. When attempting to use cat to view the file, it says permission denied.

 

What are you trying to change, or I should say, what line? The one that should be changed is timeout=10.

 

This value should be changed to 50. This allows enough time to choose which OS to boot.

 

To get to root user, you must type in at a console su, hit the enter key, then enter the root password when prompted for it.

 

The "cat" command needs to be run as root user. However, this just displays what the file contents are, it does not let you edit the file.

 

[danleff 0]

geoffs;

 

Quote:

After reading through a few forums I tried using Linux rescue. After trying different approaches from different forums it appears that despite the fact that I ticked install grub to hda, it has installed it on hd1,0.

 

After using linux rescue, did you get to the root of FC5 by typing in chroot /mnt/sysimage?

 

If not this will not work.

 

Also, if you used the default installation options to install FC5 on the system to hdb, then the grub reference files are on the /boot partition of the second drive. You need to then tell the installation to place the grub bootloader files to hda.

 

Quote:

I am however sick of installing windows and linux.

 

This is the problem. How many times have you tried installing different distros on the drive. If you did not delete each distro's instance of Grub from wherever you told each distro to put grub and the bootloader itself, you probably have multiple installations of grub on the system.

 

The same rule applies. You did not change the order of the hard drives in any way when you did any of these installations, did you?

 

If you boot from hda (the primary master drive), do you boot directly into Windows? This assumes that Windows is the first OS on the primary master drive.

[pjcunnin 0]

danleff, I am having a problem with this as well, I am not sure if this is the right topic to ask it under, but I am not sure where else to do it. I downloaded 3 versions of FC5, and they all didn't install. So I talked to a few friends and they told me to try Ubuntu, but it didn't contain all the C stuff that I wanted, to get easily, so I installed Grub on that, and I just straight installed FC5 over it once I got a working DVD iso. So I have 2 HDs, and the MBR is on my HD with windows on it, and FC5 is on my other HD. But now when I go to start my computer I get a message from Grub, and then my machine hangs. They only way to access my computer that I have found so far was with FC5 rescue. Any ideas on what I need to due to fix my MBR. I have tried many times to look through installing a new boot record, but everytime I do it it won't change anything becuase there was nothing new done with the kernel. Pleasee anyone give any help you can. Becuase at the moment my computer isn't working. lol. Thanks in advance.

[danleff 0]

The problem with responding to these posts is that it is difficult to see everyting that folks have done before they post on these forums. In you case, it looks like you installed grub from Ubuntu on the MBR of the actual boot drive. Then you installed Fedora on the second hard drive and did not tell it to install the bootloader on the MBR of the boot drive, hda.

 

So, now what you have is the old grub bootloader from ubuntu looking for that distrro and it does not find it. Posting the exact boot error message would be helpful, but I can guess what happened.

 

You accepted the default partitioning option and grub options when installing Fedora on the second drive. Grub is installed on the /boot partition on that drive.

 

Just in case, do you have a full Windows installation CD to recover Windows, if necessary?

[pjcunnin 0]

I might have a disc floating around somewhere. Is there not a way to install grub onto hda? And I didn't except most the default options. In fact when I intalled FC5, I never got a message about installing a boot loader, that could be because a boot loader was already installed. However, when I load the FC5 disk back in and get to the choice to Install or Update, it then takes me to place were is says Grub was already found on hda. Would you like to update the boot driver, Not install, Or install a new boot driver. But from there everytime I try to install a new boot driver I get the message that there is no kernel loaded, just like the message that someone posted above me. And when I try to update Grub on hda, it says installing boot record, and then it says congratualtions the installation was complete. So I finish that and try to reboot. And I still get the same grub error. My screen says this.

 

GRUB Loading stage1.5.

 

GRUB loading, please wait...

Error 15

 

 

So I guess my question is there a way to transfer Grub over to hda and replace it? I was looking around and what other said, and I got into the linux rescue: and was able to get into /boot using chroot /mnt/sysimage and I did find Grub there. I also looked at where you gave it the comman grub-install, but I coulndt get that to work either.

 

Another problem I have is when I run the graphical install, is the menu doesnt fight right on my screen, and I cant see everything, so I had to study all the windows, to know how many things I have to tab target through. Heh. If you know an easy fix for that. That would be helpful as well.

 

As well I didn't accecpt the normal partition, I wanted to format my drive when I installed so I used Remove Linux and anything from the disk. But when I installed FC5 I never got a menu optioning to install FC5, and the first time I installed in text mode, due to the graphic version sizing. Is there maybe anyway that you could reinstall FC5 and tell it to install to the MBR on hda and replace it?

 

Another thing, I also changed the boot order, to boot from hdb first, and when I do that I get the error that No OS found. I was reading up and I might try to see where Grub is installed on hdb, where its on the MBR or if its in some partition. However, since I get that kernel error I am not sure if that will work either. But I guess at the moment its worth a shot.

 

Sorry I know theres a few questions in there, and I am more then willing to answer more questions that you want to know. Thank you for your help in advance.

[Edited by pjcunnin on 2006-05-26 19:35:59]

 

[pjcunnin 0]

Ok, I have made a little progress. I reinstalled Ubuntu, and overrided everything on my hba. So I know longer get that error, and I can load into Ubuntu, and Windows with no problem. So now, how can I uninstall Ubuntu and remove the GRUB, so I can start over?

[danleff 0]

Grub boot error;

 

15 : File not found

This error is returned if the specified file name cannot be found, but everything else (like the disk/partition info) is OK.

 

So this error occurs BEFORE you changed the boot order of the drives, or after?

 

Do you get the Fedora grub splash screen, or the grub screen from your previous installation?

 

The issue is that the grub bootloader that you have may be from a previous installation. If you did not remove grub from ther previous linux installatiion, that one is still resident on the MBR.

 

Why do I think this? The error 15, which means that it can't find the correct kernel and/or initrd files for Fedora.

 

Did you reformat the partition before trying to install Fedora and then use custom partitioning, during the installation to point root to the formatted partition?

 

Yes, you did get a summary screen, during the installation, to configure a bootloader. You probably missed it. On the summary screen where you are allowed to choose packages to install, timezone etc...configuring the bootloader was an option. I lot of folks miss this. So, by not setting this, you chose the default location that Fedora picked for you. This was on the second hard drive, not the MBR of your boot drive, hda. Fedora assumes that you are installing on a single hard drive and the MBR is on that drive. If you don't tell it otherwise, then it doesn't know.

 

As I said, you can't install or update the grub bootloader from the installation disk, by allowing it to proceed to install or update the system. The source of your problems here is that FC5 is already installed. It sees a grub installed (probably the new one on the second disk) and there is no new kernel to install, you already have the kernel on the hard drive. Confusing, but true.

 

You need to try to install grub from the rescue mode. However, if you have already changed the hard drive designations and done things, realize that you are not trying to install grub to hda, if you swapped the drive designations. The second drive becomes hda when you make it the primary master, or change the boot order in the bios. Please don't do this and attempt any changes!

 

The graphical installation problem is a source of another issue. Give us some specs. on your system. make or model of computer, or if you built it yourself, what essentialhardware is on the system.

 

Did you check to see if your system met the hardware requirements of Fedora? At issue here is the video card in the system, and the amount of ram on the system.

 

Sorry for the overly technical explanations, but they are important.

 

...and if all goes wrong, do you have a full installation CD of Windows???what version?

[danleff 0]

Looks like we posted at the same time (although the true times are off). Please give me the information that I asked for about your system, the Windows version and installation disk availability.

[pjcunnin 0]

Ok, I have made more progress since my last post. I found my windows cd. and was able to restore to my original MBR. Which is good, so I believe I just have one question left to ask, with FC5, how do I tell it to install /boot on my hda. Is it under the review and edit partiotion tab. I think I was able to manuever myself back to basically a new fresh start. So I just want to make sure I install the /boot in the right place this time. Heh. Thanks for all your help so far.

 

My computer is composed

3.2ghz intel pentium 4

160 gig hd and a 40 gig hd

1 gig of ram.

and a ati x800 all in wonder vid card

 

Oh and its windows xp, with sp2

and my 160 hd has windows and all that crap on it

while I want to put FC5 on my 40 gig.

 

Ya ok, I know exactly where I am at. And I just now need to know the right way to install FC5 for dual booting. So if you could explain how to update my MBR, or install grub onto hda, while installing FC5 on hdb. That would be great, or if anyone can link a site that explains, if you already have done so before. Thanks for all the help.!

 

 

I just ran /sbin/fdisk -l just to check things, and I forget to mention, I have an HP and instead of having disks, there is a partition that came with the computer, used for restore, and I believe that is from my hda. So I will post below what i get from fdisk.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hda1 1 765 #of blocks b W95 FAT32

/dev/hda2 * 766 20672 big # 7 HPFS/NTFS

 

/dev/hdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux

/dev/hdb2 14 4866 big # 8e Linux LVM

 

Where hda is my 160gig and my hdb is my 40 gig

 

I know the formatting for above is poor so bear with me on that please. Basically the * for boot is under /dev/hda2 and /dev/hdb1 hopefully that helps some, becuase the lack of space throws of the formatting.

[danleff 0]

As I thought, you probably have Fedora's grub on the second hard drive. This is evidenced by the partition;

 

/dev/hdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux

 

Where the * means that the partition is marked active, probably with the grub bootloader files.

 

See if this Fedora Core 5 Linux Installation Notes article helps. Look specifically under the installation notes.

 

I will also try to post/find some specific directions where to set Grub to the MBR of the hda drive later on today.

[mrnsnp 0]

ok, once more another newbie to the whole linux deal. I am running two 250 gig hd's using SATA. I have WinXP (32 bit) on the first and Fedora Core5 (64 bit) on the second. Fedora Core installed fine but when I go to set it up it asks for a login name and then a password but I don't think I have set one up, unless it is using one of the two passwords I set up during the install. My other problem is I can't load WinXP from the linux side, it hangs my system out. Could this be from running a 64 bit and 32 bit OS?

 

If more info is needing such as exactly what it is asking for or where it hangs I can post that at a later date.

[danleff 0]

I notice that you started your own thread also. Please post any information on the thread that you started, as posting in more than one place confuses folks who need to respond to your questions. This way we keep all the information about your problem in one place, the thread that you started.