Hi all,
I’ve recently set up dual boot win xp and fc5 on a single sata hard disk. I’ve installed grub to the first sector of linux /boot and copied the linux boot sector to win xp and configured windows boot.ini to boot both.

Heres my partition then.
Partition 1 40GB: win xp
Partition 2 30GB: FC5
Partition 3: Data

Case 1
Everything looks fine then and I am able to boot into win xp. But when I choose FC5 from the boot menu, it takes me to the grub command shell. So I have to enter a series of commands at the grub> prompt before I can boot into FC5. This is the case every time I need to boot into FC5 I have to re-enter the commands at the grub command shell prompt.

Case 2
Again, I tried another method which is to create a very small partition right at the start of the hard disk by using partition magic in which this time round, I placed grub there. After this, I am able to boot into FC5 directly after choosing FC5 from the boot menu. (I understand this method can be used to solved the “1024 cylinder limit” issue with older system boards)

However my system board is Gigabyte GA 8IK1100, which has been around with me for 2 years.and I do not think it is an old system board that has the “1024 cylinder limit” problem since it can already get into grub right? It is manufactured in 2003 if I’m not wrong.

Therefore, if the problem is not the “1024 cylinder limit”, I do not have to perform the method described in “Case 2” as above.

In this case, I’m wondering if anyone can provide some assistance here in getting FC5 to boot directly instead of running the commands everytime at the grub command shell?

I’ve searched for several solutions that may be the cause of an older system boards nevertheless,but not sure if they apply to the problem well such as upgrading my BIOS version, Forcing LBA32 (not so sure if mine support LBA32 yet as I’m unable to find the information from the manufacturer).

I am also wondering if there is any other configuration needed to be made at the grub.conf?

Please let me know if u require more info abt my system?

Thanks in advanced and much appreciated for any solutions

i'd just install grub to the MBR, i believe on FC it will detect other OS' too. That can be achieved by booting then issuing grub-install /dev/<primary_HDD_device>

So would I - however, that wasn't what the OP wanted.
Getting the grub prompt means it can't find the stage files. I'd be inclined to fix it from the prompt.
Do a "find /boot/grub/stage1" - use the response (say "(hd0,1)") as follows;Copy the boot sector record as before, and see how you go.

hi there and thanks for the suggestions

heres what I've did at the grub command prompt
grub> find /grub/stage1
grub> root(hd0,5)
grub> kernel /vmlinuz[TAB]
grub> initrd /initrd[TAB]
grub> boot

then it boots into fedora. But I will have to run these commands everytime I wana boot into fedora.

Another user suggested may be the menu.lst in boot/grub???Should I suppose to have those commands above appearing in the menu.lst??

Sounds like anaconda didn't set-up grub properly. Did you manually install it by any chance ???.

Yes those commands (except the find) need to be in menu.lst (or maybe grub.conf depending on what Fedora uses these days). Once in Fedora, set up the menu.lst/grub.conf, and run the two commands I suggested. The setup will re-write the boot record with the relevant info. Another option would be to use grub-install.

Then copy the boot record again.

hmm..not sure abt manually installing grub.All I did was during the fedora installation,I simply chooses grub to install at first sector of /boot thats all.


apologies still new to this.So u r saying I can get into fedora and just make sure these commands are found in the menu.lst and grub.conf?
root(hd0,5)
kernel /vmlinuz[TAB]
initrd /initrd[TAB]

follow by i run these commands as mentioned by u earlier?
root (hd0,5)
setup (hd0,5)