I have Windows 2000 installed on my master drive. I just installed Fedora Core 4 on my slave drive. I followed the instructions during the setup and as far as I know Grub was installed to the MBR of the Windows drive, I guess where it is supposed to be. Well when I restarted my machine, it just loaded right into Windows 2000 without it offering me a choice of which operating system to boot into, like it should have.

Someone suggested running a drive diagnostic tool to make sure the slave drive is okay. I did. I used Hitachi Drive Fitness. After it completed it said "Operation Completed Successfully" so I believe the slave drive is okay.

I re-installed Fedora Core 4 but the same thing happened. And also I went into my BIOS and changed it so the computer is booting from the slave drive where Fedora is installed. When it booted it went to a black screen with a blinking cursor, nothing else happened.

So if you know what could have gone wrong here or how to fix it let me know. Thanks.

Take a look at this thread as it could help you to dual boot your machine.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=357686

In case of doubt post it I'll answer it later.

JdogPc

It sounds like First you did the re-install, second you changed the BIOS boot order.

If you're willing to take the time, try it again in the other order -- BIOS order, then re-install.

If you were already a GRUB expert, there might be an easier way; but this should be very straightforward.

Well I can't go into rescue mode. When I get to the prompt where I type Linux Resuce or whatever the screen scrolls through a bunch of stuff and it then eventually just hangs. The last entry on the screen is this:

[<C01012B1>] Kernel_thread_helper +0x5/0x14

So the advice that was given concerning going into Rescue Mode and typing in that stuff I can't really follow.

I don't know much about Linux but one fellow on PC Magazine's web site said the preferred way to have things set up is to configure the boot loader LILO or GRUB to start either Windows or Linux. Of course I knew that much and I assumed that the setup program would place GRUB on the MBR of the Windows drive and during reboot it would show me both operating systems installed on my machine and then give me a choice.

He did mention "a hard way" of doing it where you would use FDISK or Partition Magic or something to set the partition on which Linux is installed as the "Active" partition. And he went on to say the BIOS can only boot an OS from the "Active" partition and only one partition in the system can be marked as "Active" at one time.

But the problem of doing it that way is I think you have change the "Active" partition and BIOS boot device every time you want to use a different OS, so I don't think I would want to go this route.

Doing it the other way would be better.

I could try what archtoad suggested, but if I did it that way wouldn't that mean that every time I wanted to change operating systems I would have to go into the BIOS and change the drive from which the computer boots?

Tonight I tried something a bit different. I went thru the install process again but this time I told Fedora to install GRUB to the slave drive to the first sector of the boot partition. But when setup was complete and I restarted it booted right into Windows again.

I also tried going into linux rescue mode again but a no go.

I've been doing some reading on the web and got some stuff printed off but to me it looks rather confusing.

No, the BIOS order swap is a "set it & forget it" change. At least until the next overhaul.

I suspect that the real problem is that Linux installer is indeed putting GRUB in the MBR, but of the 2nd drive -- the one it just installed on. Given our OP's level of experience, I think that the easy way is (permanent) BIOS boot order change, followed by re-install.

The crux here is that GRUB must be in the MBR of the drive the BIOS boots. That means my original suggestion, re-iterated above, of telling the Linux installer to put it (GRUB) in the MBR of the Winders drive. That is what I would do if it were my machine, but I am not you, and my advice was keyed to your experience level, ease of implementation, minimization of frustration, etc.

Try it, you may like it.

But how do I tell GRUB to install itself in the MBR of the Windows drive? If it is not doing that automatically how do you tell it to do that? And I can't go into rescue mode either cuz the thing just hangs after scrolling through a few screens.

I'll try your suggestion though.

Do try the suggestion as you said.

The reason it is easier in these circumstances, is the difficultly in either telling FC or explaining how to tell FC to put GRUB in a different MBR.

The BIOS boot order change is a good permanent solution that has the advantage of leaving the Win bootloader intact. (Principle of least change/harm.)

My first experiences with linux were frustrating as couldn't even start the X server, so don't give up just now and remember must good things in life are not easy to get.

I have always dual booted my machines with windowz and linux (Redhat/FC). I have never had the need to mess around the bios drive order to boot the wright OS.

As far my experience tells me the simplest and straightforward way is to:
1- install windowz
2- install Linux, and choose to install th boot loader on the MBR of the first disk, this has always worked well.

Grub should only be installed on first sector of linux's boot partition if you have another boot loader like Partition Magic installed on your machine and configure it.

You can also force the way linux detects your disks if you choose 'Advanced Options' on the boot loader page of the installation process. Usually this is not needed as anaconda chooses th wright disk, if you change the order disk are detected here make sure you change it in a way to match your bios.

I saw you can't boot linux rescue, try to understand what's wrong when you boot in rescue mode read the last line before the error messages to see what modules is not loading. Choose to NOT ACTIVATE network.

If you can't try to post the error messages for to try to find the problem.

If your system is boot windowz correctly right now you can either re-install FC or boot from the first cd choosing 'linux rescue'. Once the system boots up you're dropped into a shell prompt, I usually do a 'chroot /mnt/sysimage' to make sure all grub file are put on the wright place, I then do 'grub-install /dev/hda' and that's it. Grub is now installed on my first hard disk MBR.
If you follow this I think you won't have problems loading linux.
D'ONT REBOOT NOW! Grub install does not put the info to load your windowz, so this has to be done by hand also, don't despair this is almost done.

Edit the file /boot/grub/grub.conf and add the the following lines to the end of the file:

title Windows 2000
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

These are the conf lines anaconda wrights on file when linux is installed.

Good luck.

Well I re-installed Fedora and I made sure the bootloader was in fact installed to the MBR of the Windows drive, but upon reboot it always just goes into Windows. I also went into Rescue Mode which is a feat in itself. Lots of times it just won't go into Rescue Mode. Something about hitting a bunch of garbage keys gets it going. After typing chroot /mnt/sysimage I typed grub-install /dev/hda but I got this:

/dev/hdb1 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive

So I guess that took care of that. I tried some other suggestions which I tried to follow on the web, most of which are rather complicated for me to understand, but so far no go. I am going to also try archtoad's suggestion. I also noticed there were a couple of places during the installation program that upon clicking the Next key nothing happened. I had to hit the Enter key to make the program go forward.

I had exactly the same problem with my windows 2000 server / FC4 installation. During installation everything was fine, but after the first reboot, it went directly to windows instead of showing me the GRUB menu. I tried going into Linux rescue mode, and did the grub-install command and gave me the message: /dev/hdb1 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive. I even tried adding the line into the boot.ini file in windows 2000...(of course it didn't work).

I did some surfing and found this useful piece of information over the net, this will surely help you like it did for me.

Go into linux rescue mode:

chroot /mnt/sysimage ( i don't really know if this is necessary, but just in case)

# grub
grub> root (hd1,0) (since fedora /boot is on /hdb)
grub> setup (hd0) (still the mbr of the first hd)
grub> quit

This is my configuration

/dev/hda - grub in mbr?
/dev/hda1 - ntfs (w2k)
/dev/hdb - fedora drive
/dev/hdb1 - /boot
/dev/hdb2 - LVM (/ and swap)

you'll have to make the corresponding changes to adjust it to your reality. It seems that there is a bug in that grub-install module.

there you go, it worked like a charm!!! Here's the link if you want to go through the hole posting http://forums.fedoraforum.org/archiv...p/t-51741.html

Good luck!!

P.S. by the way, my BIOS boot order is first hda and then hdb same way as it should be.

So there is something wrong with this Fedora thing. I tried your instructions but when I typed root (hd1, 0) I got:

error 27 Unrecognized command

And when I typed setup (hd0) I got:

error 12 Invalid device requested

So I could not go any further. Actually I was wondering why you would type (hd1, 0). What does that mean anyway? I've heard of hda and hda1 and even hdb but not hd1.

hmm...I'm not a linux expert or anything of that sort, but from the examples I deducted this

I have 2 hard drives the master one corresponds to hda and the slave is hdb, hda has 2 partitions: one for w2k and the other one for data; hdb is exclusively linux

Translating that for GRUB :

hda --> hd0
hdb --> hd1

Grub should be installed in the MBR, which is on the master drive, so hd0 is correct. On the other hand my Fedora installation is on hdb (hd1), therefore the root command is correct too

That all I have to explain the hd0 and hd1.

I could see from your post that you wrote: root (hd1, 0) with a space between the comma and the 0, maybe it is a typo, but if you did write it like that maybe there is your mistake, try it without the space in between.

It should work for you since mine is working perfectly now...oh, another thing, after i fixed that problem i had to edit the grub.conf file and comment out the line hiddenmenu, otherwise i had to press esc in order to see the grub menu.

hope this helps

Well I tried 6 more times to go into Rescue Mode and each time failed. It just keeps getting hung up at the same spot. There are definitely three bugs in this Fedora. Grub not being installed correctly, the installation program hanging up, and not being able to go into Rescue Mode. Maybe tonight I will try again.