I am struggling with install of FC5 ... specifically the bootloader.

system:

dual head
two disk drives
hda Windows XP Vfat (1) and NTFS (2)
hdb Linux FC 5 / /root
hdc DVD reader
hdd DVD writer

Installation is from DVD burnt with downloaded ISO disk check out OK.

in Windows hda is master and hdb is slave.

I have read many posts and tried many variations of re-install, boot from linux rescue grub-install hdb1, dd a boot.lnx file and write to Windows C:, etc.

Now I am seeing options of Windows XP and FC 5 at boot. Windows as default or selected boots fine. When selecting FC5 I only get a "-" in the upper left hand corner. If I try to force a boot from the hdb drive I get the " L 99 99 99 99 ..." response.


I think I am close but I am running out of ideas and patience ... can anyone point me in the right direction?

thanks in advance ... kiwi01

Which bootloader are you using???? Which one do you want to use???

It sounds like at one time you had a version of Linux installed on hdb and removed it. This is why you get the LILO error when you force the system to boot to the drive.

So lets see if we can FC5 to at least boot. Using the installation media boot into rescue mode by typing 'linux rescue' minus the single quotemarks. Answer a few questions and read the on-screen messages, pay close attention to the chroot instructions. When ready do the suggested chroot command then try something like;

/sbin/grub-install --recheck /dev/hda

Reboot (with the installation media removed) the system and try to boot into FC5.
If successful then reboot the system again this time try booting into Windows XP, report the results good or bad.

Thanks ... I will try it tonight when I get home.

Yes at various times I have had Slackware (used LILO)and FC4 (I thought used GRUB) on the 2nd drive. While I am not a newbie I am just a interested user, with no back ground in computers. I thought I would try FC5 and see how "easily" it would install and learn some more about LINUX.

OK ... reinstalled grub to /dev/hda and now it boots to FC5. Tried a reboot to windows ... no go. It boots to the diagnostics. Just to kep the wife happy I booted to windows repair and did a fixmbr. What did I do to mess up the Windows boot?

Don't know...... It would be nice to see the contents of the /boot/grub/grub.conf file. It would also be helpful to see the output from the command;

fdisk -l (that's the lower case letter 'L' in the command)

The grub-install is a wrapper for grub - i.e. you weren't using the FC installer code which goes looking for Windows to add to the menu.

You should be able to boot the FC disk 1 into rescue mode,and recover the boot-loader install. Probably easiest if you're not comfortablewith grub.

I re-booted w/ linux rescue

grub-install --recheck /dev/hda

fdisk -l ... gives

/dev/hda1 1 5 40131 6 Fat16
/dev/hda2 * 6 14589 117145980 7 HPFS/NTFS


/dev/hdb1 * 1 13 103391 83 Linux
/dev/hdb2 14 9964 79931407+ 8e LVM


grub.conf ...
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd1,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora Core (2.6.15-1.2054_FC5smp)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5smp ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5smp.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1


device.map ...

(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdb

Same result after the install-grub ... will boot to FC5 but only boots to diagnostics when I select other. Again I did the fixmbr so that I could boot to Windows XP for the family.

Any suggestions on what I should try next ...

That hda1 is probably something like a vendor recovery partition. Given that hda2 is marked bootable,tryEdit: If you want a meaningful option on the boot menu, change the "title" line to something meaningful while you're at it - say "title XP".

Thanks ... I will try this evening when I get back home.

I had all sorts of problems with a very similar setup.

Try sticking grub on hdb and look at

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=439864

I now have Windows on hda and FC5/grub on hdb and have set my bios to boot from hdb

Works fine - only issue is I need to edit grub each time I install a new kernel as I want windows at the top of the bootloader list (ie the default)

I'm having what seems like the same problem. Funny thing is, when I got it to boot in to Fedora, I changed the resolution to something my monitor doesn't support, not thinking about it. Now I can't edit anything with Fedora due to the resolution problem.

I have a copy of Knoppix 3.6 that I'm trying to use to fix all this, but I can't seem to find the X settings for Fedora. Also, I can't edit the grub.conf file because Knoppix is reading it as read-only - even as root..

Any thoughts?



<EDIT> Nevermind! After some more forum probing and self-teaching, I'm good to go! Turns out I didn't have a huge Grub problem after all! Yay Linux!

Thanks for all of the help ... I reinstalled FC5 and set Grub to chainload from NTLDR and I can now boot to either XP or FC5. None of the remapping and reinstall of GRUB seemed to work so I opted for this method.