linux noob needs help

[cnewman 0]

hi,

 

first off please dont flame me im noob. (heh) im a 25 year old college student who is working alot with computers (micro pc tech) so I decided to venture ahead. I have been interested in Linux for sometime now and used to be part of a technology group that urged me to just rid windooze all together and run just linux. I guess my problem with this is I need it around for things like doing Office products classes etc.

 

Ok now to my point and question.

 

I had a 80GB hda and a 120GB hdb. Windows corp. edition was on hda, and i was trying to put Fedora core 4 on hdb. I burned the DVD.iso, tested it, read many many forums inside and out trying to get the GRUB boot splashscreen to come up. I was totally unsuccessful. lol. who would guess right?.... ok.

 

so finally when the cigarettes ran out and i screwed up not only the fedora install but the windows install and the pepto-bismol ran out i gave up and went to bed. hehe

 

so now i am reinstalling win corp on my main drive, and want to put fedora on the second drive. i have read tons of forums and tried this solution to the issue with no success.this solution here

 

as soon as i get XP corp back up I was wondering if anyone in the community would be willing to get on an IM'r with me to help me go through this. I promise im totally acknowledged in the field just completely new to linux. I thought I was having the same issue that man was, but it seems as I wasnt as I tried the exact steps he took with no success.

 

is there anyone willing to help me out im lost when it comes to the dual boot. im sure I could do the single install fine, I just need help with the dual booting. I know theres beens tons upon tons of threads on this subject, I just cant find the solution. Im a really fast learner so im not asking for much time. i betting the problem is in the way im installing the GRUB on the MBR, but just can not get the spashscreen to come up no matter what way i try to install now after reading inside the liux boot process. i did want to add when i tried the system-config-boot in the rescue menu i got the response kernel not found.

 

im a sounding a mess here? probably. Just know that soon as im educated on the subject im a big person on pay it forward, and will help others all i can. i do flash advertisements as a hobby and on the side for sale, so maybe we could bargin a deal or something, if you had some ad's needing made.

 

heres my contact info

 

MSN messenger and email: cnewman@neb.rr.com

AIM: l337husker80

Yahoo: cnewman1980 (im hardly on it but can be)

 

thank you in advance if you've considered my request.

 

-Chris

[Edited by cnewman on 2006-06-05 20:09:18]

 

[Edited by cnewman on 2006-06-05 20:15:33]

 

[Edited by cnewman on 2006-06-05 20:32:53]

 

[danleff 0]

Unfortunately, the post you referred to was not the exact same problem that you are having. In that post, the user had a third party boot manager installed that was mucking up the works on his initial installation of Fedora. Once he figured out the issue, he found a solution.

 

Quote:

so finally when the cigarettes ran out and i screwed up not only the fedora install but the windows install and the pepto-bismol ran out i gave up and went to bed. hehe

 

You are getting stuck in the same loop that others do. There is not need to keep reinstalling things and the directions that you followed, or seemed to follow that the user tried, missed documenting one important step in the process. Whenyou get into linux rescue, that just finds your Fedora installation and gives you some basic commands to work with. In order to get to the full root partition that Fedora is installed on, you need to tell Linux rescue to put you there. The command would be chroot /mnt/sysimage. Then you can apply any commands to fix the MBR on your actual boot drive, usually hda.

 

Quote:

i betting the problem is in the way im installing the GRUB on the MBR, but just can not get the spashscreen to come up no matter what way i try to install now after reading inside the liux boot process. i did want to add when i tried the system-config-boot in the rescue menu i got the response kernel not found.

 

You are most likely not installing Grub into the MBR of your primary master drive, the one that holds your Windows installation. Can you remember where you installed Grub? Remember that hda is the primary master drive (your boot drive) and depending on where you have the second drive jumpered and set to, that drive is your Fedora drive. If you elected to install grub on the second drive during the installation, then this is not your boot drive. Therefore, no Grub on your actual boot drive.

[cnewman 0]

silly me, i got lol. i feel dumb to say this lol. and im wondering if alot of people new to linux dont think of this. i went into my CMOS and needed to change my boot order from hdd01 to hdd00. geeeez. sometimes i laugh at myself. this shoulve been the first thing i tried. well ok now this noob walks into the land of his unknown, and gets chills. i love doing this stuff. thing is i set GRUB to default boot windows and have 2 seconds to hit any key to go into linux. i did notice though that i got a OS failed to boot error when windows went to default load. so im thinking start all over. do a raw xp install, then do another fedora install. because i think somewhere along the lines i screwed up the windows during the fedora install. does this happen often? anything i can do inside fedora to save the XP? before i take hours reinstalling? and thanks for the help by the way. i cant wait to certify and self acclaim myself as a linux pro. and hhelp other. i love helping ppl get into new stuff. its how i started college for computer technology.

 

but any ideas to save the XP now beofre i start?

 

 

 

[danleff 0]

So, it was what I thought. The drive boot order was changed. Has this been the cae all along? In other words, you had installed Windows and fedora with the drive boot order like this? If so, then there is a fix. I always forget the exact syntax, but it can be fixed. let me remember the syntax (in your case) and post back. But, in the grub.conf file, you can reverse the order of the drives, as they are seen by Windows and grub. Why, because the Windows boot.ini file is pointing to the opposite drive now that you have reversed the order in the bios. but the general syntax in the Windows entry is something like;

 

title Windows (it may be "other" as Fedora set it up)

map (hd0) (hd1)

map (hd1) (hd0)

chainloader (hd1,0)+1

 

or;

 

title Windows

rootnoverify (hd0,1)

chainloader +1

 

But, let me check the exact syntax for your issue.

[danleff 0]

See, I knew I would get it wrong. The second option should read;

 

title Windows

rootnoverify (hd1,0)

chainloader +1