dual boot windows xp linux rh7.3

Imiro · 09-09-2002, 01:39 PM

Yo yo,
ive run into a problem dual booting with RH7.3 and winXP. I think ive searched trough most of the many similar subjects here but didnt either find a direct answer or really understand what was said..

I began with having win98se first and then installing linux with grub as dual-boot and it worked fine. Win was on primary partition and linux at hda5. I didnt have any separate boot-partition for linux, but installed grub to the mbr and made a boot-floppy.

Next i wanted to upgrade win to XP. I realized ill loose the mbr, but thought i could later copy the bootsector.lnx 512B to windows and dual-boot that way.

Only later i found out i was supposed to copy the bootsector stuff from the boot-partition i never had... Anyways tried to use a file /boot/grub/stage1 but it only brings a txt "grub" and blinking cursor.

Ive found some advice to reinstall grub some how and then fiddle with the grub-config to include xp as menu-choice, but wasnt sure if it applies here?

Any ideas? If you need some more details, just ask!

Thx,

Imiro

jglen490 · 09-09-2002, 02:56 PM

What is currently in your /boot/grub/menu.lst file?

The problem seems to be that you copied a file from which Grub can't get any information about executing a kernel. The following from the GNU Grub manual may apply to your situation:

Quote:

Once started, GRUB will show the command-line interface (see Command-line interface). First, set the GRUB's root device4 to the boot directory, like this:

grub> root (hd0,0)

If you are not sure which partition actually holds these files, use the command find (see find), like this:

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

This will search for the file name /boot/grub/stage1 and show the devices which contain the file.

Once you've set the root device correctly, run the command setup (see setup):

grub> setup (hd0)

So having a Grub prompt is not a bad thing, in this case

. For further info, might I suggest the Grub manual at:

http://www.gnu.org/manual/grub-0.92/grub.html

jayakrishnan · 09-10-2002, 04:28 AM

an esy way out is to

create a linux boot disk .
upgrade to win xp .
boot the system using the boot disk and
rerun grub

born4linux · 09-10-2002, 11:24 AM

boot into rescue mode using the installation disk. chroot to /mnt/sysimage/ and re-install GRUB:

grub-install /dev/hda

You need to make sure that /boot/grub.conf has these lines:

titile Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Imiro · 09-10-2002, 02:11 PM

jglen,
this is my /boot/grub/menu.1st:

#########################################
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd0,4)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda5
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,4)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-3)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-3 ro root=/dev/hda5 hdc=ide-scsi
title win98se
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
#########################################

About the Grub prompt i get if trying to dual-boot without rh-boot-disk: allthough the cursor is blinking, i cant input anything..

--Imiro

Amerist · 09-10-2002, 03:03 PM

If you have WinXP installed and you have left room for LInux, you can accomplish what you are trying to do easily by installing Red Hat 7.3 again. After installation asks you how you want to partition your disks there will be an option to determine which bootloader you want and where the bootloader goes. At this point it's VERY IMPORTANT that you give your Windows partition at the bottom a label and make it the primary booting partition. You should use GRUB as a bootloader and write the bootloader to the MBR.