I have two hard drives onto which i have just reinstalled Windows and Linux. I first installed WindowsXP on the 2nd hard drive. It was divided into 4 partitions, the first of which (the C drive) was where I installed the OS system. Here's what fdisk tells me about it when I print it out:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 191 1534176 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb2 192 9728 76605952+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb5 192 956 6144831 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb6 957 9728 70461058+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Then I installed Fedora Core 3 onto the other hard drive. I divided it into three partitions:

/dev/hda1 * 1 127 1020096 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 128 2282 17310037+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 2283 2434 1220940 82 Linux swap

and since i didn't make a /boot partition my grub boot loader is on the first / partition.

Okay, so from pervios experienece I knew i would have to edit my /boot/grub/grub.conf file for both Linux and Windows to boot. So i did what worked last time:

default=1
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora Core 3 (2.6.9-1.667)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot

Except it didn't work. Linux works just fine. But if I try to boot to WindowsXP, it just prints out for me the windows entry I have above and then tells me it can't find NTLDR.

So I read a bunch of other postings and have now also tried things like:

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot

in various permutations but still the same result. What on earth is going wrong? Last time I didn't have WindowsXP installed with multiple partitions but I can't think of anything else i did differently.
Thanks

When you installed Fedora, what option did you select for installing the boot loader?

Note that you say you have GRUB in "/"---that won't work. GRUB has to be on a floppy or in the 1st sector of the first drive.

Normally people make the first drive windows, and put linux on the second. It is possible the other way around (using the remapping you have already discovered), but I have never done it.

Here is one of the ultimate resources for multi-boot:
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showt...hreadid=143973

When i installed Fedora I told it to put grub on /dev/hda since that was where the rest of Linux was. I'm not sure what other options you might mean.
In my /boot/grub/grub.conf file it says:

# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda1
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda

Which is the same thing it said last time I did it this way. I'm not sure what you mean by "GRUB has to be...in the 1st sector of the first drive."

One important difference I just realized from what you said though is that last time my first drive was the Windows drive and the second drive was the Linux drive. So I guess that's why I have to do the mapping as you said. Is there something else I need to do too though?

Thanks for the link you sent. I'll try looking over it too.

I just realized that my first partition on hdb (the windows drive) is not the OS, it is swap. The 3rd partition is the OS though it seem to be labeled as hdb5. Not sure why.

Anyways, my current grub.cong entry for windows looks like this:

title Windows XP
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
root (hd1,2)
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot

I changed root (hd1,0) to (hd1,2) since that makes it look for the 3rd partition, right? But now it just says:

Error 12: Invalid Device Request

I also tried root (hd1,5) just in case. Same error though.

I'm assuming the mapping thing above took care of the problem of my Windows drive being the 2nd rather than 1st one. And I figured the root command needed to be placed after this mapping. Though that was just a guess. Not sure where else I'm going wrong though.

When the machine boots, it looks for instructions in one of several places:
floppy
CD
1st sector fo first hardrive.

(The BIOS configuration will tell you where it looks and in what order)

If you are booting from HD, then grub WILL be in the first sector---which is what will happen when you tell Fedora to put it on /dev/hda

Take a look at the various references, grub manual, etc. on the "chainloader" command in grub config file. I THINK that "chainloader +1" sends the system to the next sector on the same drive where it is processing. Thus if grub is on drive 0, it will not find NTLDR on drive 1. I think this is what the remapping fixes.

Because my brain typically shorts out on the details, I usually stick with Windows on first, and Linux on second. Note that you may be ble to change boot order in BIOS--or you can simply physically chqange the drive connections