Fedora Core 3 and Debian 3.0 r4 dual-boot problem
 

Hi.
I have currently one harddisk and 3 operating systems on it (Windows XP, Fedora Core 3 & Debian 3.0 r4). It has 6 partitions and it looks like this:

##############################################################
/dev/hda1 * 1 2547 20458746 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 2548 9729 57689415 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 2548 4506 15735636 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda6 4507 8423 31463271 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 8424 8547 995998+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda8 8548 9729 9494383+ 83 Linux
##############################################################

I have first installed Windows XP. Then I've installed Fedora Core 3 on /dev/hda6 with only "/" (no /boot & swap). I've also installed grub in Fedora as my boot loader and I can load both Windows and Fedora. This is how my menu.lst looks:

##############################################################
title Fedora Core (2.6.10-1.770)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-1.770_FC3 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.10-1.770_FC3.img
title Fedora Core (2.6.9-1.667)
root (hd0,5)
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 (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
##############################################################

Finally, I've installed Debian 3.0 r4 with swap on /dev/hda7 and "/" on /dev/hda8. I have NOT installed lilo. Now I wanted to modify my menu.lst or grub.conf as described here:

enterprise.linux.com/enterprise/04/12/23/2033238.shtml?tid=129&tid=47

It says there that I should copy 3 files from /boot on my Debian partition (/dev/hda8) to /boot on my current, Fedora partition (/dev/hda6). However, I could not locate all those 3 files. The required files are:

##############################################################
initrd-xxx.img
System.map-xxx
vmlinuz-xxx
##############################################################

And here is what I have in /boot on Debian root:

##############################################################
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 Mar 17 20:03 boot.b -> boot-menu.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7988 Apr 13 2002 boot-bmp.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6204 Apr 13 2002 boot-compat.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7964 Apr 13 2002 boot-menu.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6204 Apr 13 2002 boot-text.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 728 Apr 13 2002 chain.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3888 Mar 17 20:00 config-2.2.20-idepci
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 656 Apr 13 2002 os2_d.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 224124 Mar 17 20:00 System.map-2.2.20-idepci
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 665509 Mar 17 20:00 vmlinuz-2.2.20-idepci
##############################################################

Although, I am missing initrd-xxx.img file.
Thank you for your help.

First off - congrats on a first post with *lots* of relevant information!

Did you make a boot floppy for the Debian install?

If you did, I'd suggest booting into Debian from the floppy, and then installing either GRUB or LILO to the boot record of the Debian partition (NOTE: *NOT* the MBR of the whole disk.)

Then reboot into Fedora, and add the following to ../grub/menu.lst:

title Debian
root (hd0,7)
chainloader +1

Another reboot, and you should be able to select Debian from GRUB...

:-) Thank you for your answer but, unfortunatly, my computer has no floppy drives. Any other solutions?

Can you lay your hands on a LiveCD such as Knoppix? You may be able to install a bootloader to the Debian partition using that...

Yes, I have Ubuntu Live. Since I am just a newbie, could you, please, be more specific on what exactly I have to do?

Here's where I get caught out! :o

I'd suggest booting up the live cd, than doing `man lilo` or `man grub` in a terminal to check the command syntax for installing the bootloader to a given partition. I'm not on my own box just now so I can't be more specific, sorry.