Problem : Grub doesn't show up on installing Fedora11 with Vista already installed.

garanaveen · 09-14-2009, 10:19 AM

I have dell inspiron15 laptop with Windows Vista preinstalled.

I installed Fedora11 on this (dual boot).
As 3 primary partitions were already present with Vista installation (VistaOS, recovery disk, and the third is some thing which i couldn't understand) I had to install Fedora11 on extended partition(Is this ok? or is it a must to install a new OS on primary partition?). I installed Grub on MBR (as F11 was installed on Extended partition).
After installation is complete installer will ask to reboot and after rebooting Grub just doesn't show up. Vista gets booted directly.

The guide which I had followed to install F11 on vista is,
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vi...lled_first.htm

Please help me out!!

FYI,
I am a new bee in installing OSs, managing dual boots, etc.
Its ok even if it is possible to manage the OSs using Vista Bootloader if Grub is having known problems with this combination.

yancek · 09-14-2009, 11:22 AM

There is no problem installing Fedora or other Linux distributions on a logical partition. Since you already had three primary partitions used, you used the last primary to create an extended partition and a logical partition within it as extended partitions cannot hold data.

The website you linked to uses EasyBCD to boot. That is a program designed for windows vista. Did you paste the Fedora entries from your menu.lst or grub.conf file into the NeoGrub menu.lst file in C:\NST in vista? I'd suggest reading over the last page again to make sure you did every step. If you did everything correctly (according to this site) you should get two options on boot, vista and NeoGrub which should have more than one option once you select it.

garanaveen · 09-14-2009, 12:52 PM

Oh! Thanks a lot for the quick reply.

I somehow thought Grub will get installed and do the work of bootloading for me.
So I didn't try EasyBsd.

I will try this and get back to you. But if possible can you explain me in more simple or detailed way (coz your explaination was a bit of OverHeadTransmission).

Anyways will try and let you know the results.
Thanks again!

--Naveen Gara

yancek · 09-14-2009, 04:23 PM

Quote:

I somehow thought Grub will get installed and do the work of bootloading for me

On most Linux distributions, at the end of the installation you are given an option to install bootloader (usually Grub) to the master boot record or the root partition. The site you had linked explains how to boot vista and Linux using the vista bootloader not Grub. I haven't installed Fedora for several years so I'm not sure of the details on installation.

The second paragraph in my last post was just summarized from the link you posted, the last page so if you don't understand it I would recommend reading it over again.

I don't know what NeoGrub is, never seen if referenced before but I've never used EasyBCD or vista. I expect the NeoGrub points to the Grub on the Fedora partition but something went wrong here.

Using Grub to boot both systems is usually a lot simpler but that's your choice.

garanaveen · 09-15-2009, 02:18 AM

At last!!

Neogrub did the job just as said!
But as I had done so much circus with installing fedora11 again and again there are multiple copies of f11 installed. And for this reason I was not able to get in to fedora11 even though there was an entry for it in the bootloader.

Anyways bootloader is doing the job and a fresh installation of F11 should be fine.
So the problem which I was facing is now solved.

Could you lead me to some links which explains more about using grub as bootloader. (I just wanted to try with grub)

Thanks a lot for your valuable time.