Windows XP & FC5 boot problem for a newbie

[chauhan 0]

Hi,

I had Windows XP installed on my first HD and FC5 on my 2nd HD.

Everything was ok until last week when i kept getting GRUB just before the option to select windows or linux. It would not let me do anything!

I changed the boot info ( typed 'e' at option and edited the HD1 to HD0 and now it will boot to linux but no screen showing process of booting ( problem 1 ).

I went through the process of initrd etc to get FC5 running but i am not sure if ii did it correctly. I need to find out whether i should have used HD0 or HD1 . ( i am a new linux user and therefore i need an idiots guide to help me.)

I tried reinstalling FC5 and it keeps hanging !!

I tried 'linux rescue' and if i select 'continue' ( as opposed to 'skip' , i get a blue screen with very odd characters

 

Problem 2 : I have read all threads on resolving the problem .

How do i find out where the booting takes place ( i.e. HD0 or HD1 - whats this about MBR ?

 

Problem 3 : I cannot boot windows ( GRUB ) and then no response !!

 

I tried in grub> the command chroot.... and it does not recognise it !

 

Lots of problems

Can anyone help please ?

 

private e_mail : chauhan_kaushik@hotmail.com

 

Thanks in advance

[danleff 0]

Let's go one step at a time.

 

Quote:

Everything was ok until last week when i kept getting GRUB just before the option to select windows or linux. It would not let me do anything!

 

Something has changed, or one of your filesystems has been damaged. So, Fedora booted fine until.....?

 

Did you make any changes to the installed drives, say like changing the boot order in the bios?

 

 

Quote:

I went through the process of initrd etc to get FC5 running but i am not sure if ii did it correctly. I need to find out whether i should have used HD0 or HD1 .

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What process of "initrd and etc to get FC5 running? Can you be more specific?

 

 

Quote:

I tried reinstalling FC5 and it keeps hanging !!

 

Keeps hanging where? During the installation, after the installation, on boot?

 

Quote:

I tried in grub> the command chroot.... and it does not recognise it !

 

This is not a grub command, but a command to use after running linux rescue, once the system boots and you get a command line, to get to the root partition of FC5.

[chauhan 0]

Hi, thank for trying to help.

 

Ok. this is what i did in detail so far

 

I have a desktop with two hard drives

The first Hard drive has Windows XP

The second Hard drive has FC5

 

I was doing the FC5 update and i let the PC run overnight and in the moring there was a blank screen. I tried in vain to bring it back by clicking the mouse and using the up/dowm key.

There was no respose, so switched it off.

When i switched it on again, after all the normal message and before it gave me list of what to boot it gave me GRUB ( not >grub ) and everything stopped.

So i went on the internet on my laptop to find a solution.

 

( see http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/linux-t...nd-edition.html ) and followed the instructions :

 

1. Insert FC5 disc 1 and rebooted

2. entered linux rescue at prompt

3. entered language ( English )

4. Entered country ( UK )

5. Entered NO to network interface connection

6. got shell prompt "sh-3.01#" ( cannot remember the

exact 'cause i am at work now )

7. entered "chroot /mnt/sysimage" and it did not recognise it

but i carried on with the next instruction

8. find /grub/stage1

9. response : root (hd1,0)

10. kernel (hd1,0)/vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.2124 ro root=/dev/hda2

11. initrd (hd1,0)/initrd-2.6.5-1.658.img

12. boot

 

I now had the boot menu ( grub ? ) come up, but when i tried to enter the latest version of Linux, it gave error 17

 

so i went into edit (e ) at the latest linux and changed the HD0 to HD1 and booted from there.

 

Linux came up ( without the normal process indicator ) and i was in Linux.

 

I then changed the conf file to allow HD1 instead of HD0 and rebooted.

 

Linux comes up fine ( shows all the loads it is doing - i.e. no visual indicator of process )

 

But now the problem is I cannot get into windows

 

I think that i have missed a point somewhere and dont seem clever enough to recognise it !!

 

Please feel free to communicate with me via chauhan_kaushik@hotmail.com

 

Thank for everything

 

[danleff 0]

See..things have changed!

 

You tried an upgrade from Fedora Core 2? The upgrade was to the second hard drive where FC2 was originally installed?

 

The upgrade failed. Why, because, you still have the kernel loading from FC2, the 2.6.5-1.356 kernel and initrd image?

 

I assume that the kernel and initrd files are the same version?

 

Did you also by chance change the boot order in the bios, or did you not change this boot order at all?

 

Can you post the Windows entries from the grub.conf file?

 

Once you answer my questions, we can go from here.

[chauhan 0]

Hi,

Thanks for prompt reply.

 

The Kernel and initrd have not changed

The boot order has not changed

and i cannot post windows XP from grub.conf

 

As i have nothing on windows and FC5 of anything important ( i am a newbie ) , i am considering wiping both hard drives and re-starting all over again. Can i have your opinion on that ?

( in fact i just realized, how do i re-format both hard drives !!! )

Kash

[danleff 0]

Your previous post stated;

 

10. kernel (hd1,0)/vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.2124 ro root=/dev/hda2

11. initrd (hd1,0)/initrd-2.6.5-1.658.img

 

 

The kernel and initrd file names do not match. What I was trying to determine is if grub was set to boot the same version of vmlinuz and initrd. if this was a typo, that's fine.

 

Before you jump ahead and start over, do you want to post your /boot/grub/grub.conf file so we can try to fix the Windows boot problem?

 

if not, please post the exact make and model of your system, so we can make sure that you don't have any special considerations with the system that will affect re-installing your Operating Systems. Or at the very least, avoid some headaches if you do decide to reinstall everything.

[chauhan 0]

Hi,

 

I had friend come round at the weekend and he diagnosed that the processor was knackered.

I bought a new one and re-did the vmlinux/initrd and to my surprise all worked fine.

My friend reckons that i kept getting the errors (even after fix ) that the processor shut down and re-started, and thereby causing the bios/grub to spin !!

Its all fixed now and my windows and FC5 are back as it was.

Thanks for all your help and wasting your time. Please accept my apologies.

Kash

[danleff 0]

Glad you got it fixed. So, the problem happened before any changes! Goes to show you...I concentrated on the software and all the time it was hardware!

 

This points to the advantage one has actually seeing the system itself and being able to diagnose the problem.

 

Tell your friend, nice job!