Hi

I've not been able to find a solution on the forums, so thought I'd post.

My DELL PC came with Vista installed and I then added Ubuntu. This seemed to work fine although I didn't really use Ubuntu too much. Then last week I decide to replace Ubuntu with Fedora 12. I selected the replace existing Linux option during the install process.

After installation, Grub displayed 2 options: Fedora and Other. Fedora was fine, other didn't boot. After readinf around I added another option for vista, but this results in the following error:
Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format

fdisk -l returns:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x50000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 7 56196 6 FAT16
/dev/sda2 8 1313 10485760 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 * 1314 26582 202973242+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 26583 60801 274864117+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 * 26583 26608 204800 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 26608 60801 274658303+ 8e Linux LVM

Disk /dev/dm-0: 275.9 GB, 275930677248 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 33546 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-1: 5318 MB, 5318377472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 646 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table


and my menu.lst is as follows:

# 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 (hd0,4)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root
# initrd /initrd-[generic-]version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=15
splashimage=(hd0,4)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
# hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.31.5-127.fc12.i686.PAE)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-127.fc12.i686.PAE ro root=/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=uk rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.31.5-127.fc12.i686.PAE.img
title Windows Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

I've also tried mounting the Vista partition without any success:
> ntfs-3g /dev/sda3 /mnt/vista
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda3': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda3' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?


Any assistance on this would be greatly appreciated. I'm starting to worry that I've lost my vista partition


Thanks

You could try:

rootnoverify (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Not sure that will work as the partition seems to small to contain system files. Might be a boot partition?

Do you have a vista directory created under /mnt directory?
Did you run the full mount command:
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda3 /mnt/vista ??

Thanks yancek

I tried
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

but this gave me a BOOTMGR is missing error message.

I did mkdir /mnt/vista before running the mount command.

I think you need to look at your grub configuration.
The code you posted looks right but perhaps its the wrong partition.
I know some prebuilt companies like DELL have a few partitions for system restore on windows. Try changing the 1 in (hd0,1) to 2 or 3 and see if that boots it.

My understanding is that the hd0,0 maps to /dev/sda1, hd0,1 to /dev/sda2, hd0,2 to /dev/sda3...

I've tried (hd0,0) (hd0,1) and (hd0,2). (hd0,3) should be the extended partition. Is it ok to boot this one?

Hello everyone,
I had windows 7 installed on my laptop and ubuntu on two different partitions but due to some reason ubuntu was not being shown in boot option.
I installed fedora 12 by using 'replace existing linux" option. Now it doesn't give me option to boot windows 7. It gives a option named 'other' but that gives error "bootmgr not found". I have just installed linux and am unexperienced about it so please help me.

Regards.

sudo apt-get install os-prober
sudo os-prober
sudo update grub