Installed Fedora 9 and Vista is gone and unable to dual-boot
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Installed Fedora 9 and Vista is gone and unable to dual-boot
Right, first of all I am terribly sorry if this is a common question. I looked in the forums and I tried editing the menu.lst but that did not help, as the files did nto seem to be connected when I added Vista to the boot list. Anyway, my problem :
- I installed Fedora 9 onto my laptop that has Vista as default.
- I logged onto Fedora, and realised that I could not access my Windows documents and files without going on the root account, which frightened me.
- I restarted the laptop to go back to the boot list, but it did not mention "Vista" at all. Just "Fedora [numbers]" and "Other". Clicking on Other did not lead me anywhere.
- I read the help topics in here and it might have been that my menu.lst problem. I checked, and Vista was not added, so I added the Vista script exactly as mentioned in here.
-I rebooted and on the boot list it now said "Vista", I clicked, but to my dissapointment, Dell's troubleshooting window came up with a range of troubleshooting tests I could do.
As you can see, I've tried searching the forums, but some of the stuff is way too technical. I am still a virgin at Linux, as this is my first ever installation. My friend advised me to install it, but he went back to the States for two weeks so I cannot ask him for help.
Could you please help me out here? If you are able to do so, could you please keep it very simple? I'm sorry, but I haven't learnt any jargon...
- I read the help topics in here and it might have been that my menu.lst problem. I checked, and Vista was not added, so I added the Vista script exactly as mentioned in here.
-I rebooted and on the boot list it now said "Vista", I clicked, but to my dissapointment, Dell's troubleshooting window came up with a range of troubleshooting tests I could do.
You used the correct approach. You seem to have added a title section to menu.lst which points to Dell's troubleshooting partition instead of the Vista partition. I suggest that you edit menu.lst again and change the name of this menu entry from Vista to Dell troubleshooting.
The next thing to do is to find the Vista partition. Boot into Fedora and issue this command to list all of your partitions:
Assuming you do it from a terminal session (ie run the program "terminal" from the system or accessories menu - can't recall which in Fedora), it will come up on screen below where you type the command.
Last edited by billymayday; 06-15-2008 at 06:49 PM.
Can you post the contents of menu.lst for a start, and the output of
fdisk -l (you probably need to be root for this)
Rgds
Menu.lst Content
Code:
# 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/VolGroup00/LogVol00
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,4)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora (2.6.25-14.fc9.x86_64)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.x86_64 ro root=UUID=f14f003e-9905-49c7-bdd5-c4c2e181ac5f rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.25-14.fc9.x86_64.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
title= Dell Troubleshooting
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
makeactive
fdisk -l Content
Code:
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x08000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 14 112423+ de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 15 1320 10485760 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 1320 8455 57311232 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 8456 9729 10233405 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 8456 8481 208813+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 8482 9729 10024528+ 8e Linux LVM
Disk /dev/dm-0: 8355 MB, 8355053568 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1015 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: 1845 MB, 1845493760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 224 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x30307800
Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table
I hope that helps!
Last edited by Dr.Jono; 06-16-2008 at 09:55 AM.
Reason: Added codes.
Your fdisk -l output shows two windows partitions, sda2 and sda3. Their equivalents in grub are (hd0,1) and (hd0,2). sda2 is marked active (bootable) by the asterisk. However, this partition is about 6 times smaller than sda3? You have tried booting with this entry unsuccessfully, right?
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
You could try this entry:
title= Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1
Ordinarily this should work but you have a separate /boot partition and you are using LVM, I'm not really familiar with it.
Your fdisk -l output shows two windows partitions, sda2 and sda3. Their equivalents in grub are (hd0,1) and (hd0,2). sda2 is marked active (bootable) by the asterisk. However, this partition is about 6 times smaller than sda3? You have tried booting with this entry unsuccessfully, right?
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
You could try this entry:
title= Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1
Ordinarily this should work but you have a separate /boot partition and you are using LVM, I'm not really familiar with it.
It worked! Thank you so much
Thanks Amani, Billymayday, Jailbait and Yancek for all your help I shall continue to use F9, and hopefully there won't be any more problems.
Thanks Amani, Billymayday, Jailbait and Yancek for all your help I shall continue to use F9, and hopefully there won't be any more problems.
Thanks again!
Dr.Jono
having same problem plz help
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x68000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 8 64228+ de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 9 1314 10485760 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 * 1314 10469 73540608 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 10469 19458 72198144 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 10469 14970 36152320 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 14970 17928 23755776 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7 17929 19326 11229403+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 19327 19457 1052226 82 Linux swap / Solaris
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 (hd0,6)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda7
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,6)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.25-14.fc9.i686)
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686 ro root=UUID=030d062a-bb10-43ea-a0dc-7c6826c6eec7 rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
title Windows Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
makeactive
# chainloader +1
title Windows Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
makeactive
# chainloader +1
In addition to removing the (#) from in front of chainloader, you have an incorrect stanza in your menu.lst for vista. It shows (hd0,3) as the partition to boot from but that is your extended partition (see fdisk output) and you can't boot from extended. Change the entry to (hd0,2) which is marked as active/bootable (*). What do you have on sda2?
If you are not getting a menu to select from upon boot, you need to comment out hiddenmenu as (#hiddenmenu).
If I might throw my two cents in, when dual booting with windows I alaways use grubldr which hooks into the NTldr program which comes with windows.
It has been my experiance that windows is realy, realy bad at dealing with boot sectors that are not its own (such as GRUB or LiLo) and if your machine is set up to hibernate this will regularly destroy your linux boot sector. Several windows only virus scanners think that GRUB boot sectors are boot viruses and "clean" them, too.
Basicaly, Grubldr is a file that you add to your windows boot.ini and then when it boots NTldr (which normaly allows you to chose between various versions of windos) will alow you to chose between windows and GRUB (which then reads menu.lst where you can boot various flavours of linux). I have found it to be the best way to deal with MS buggy and badly thought out attemps at dealing with the boot sector.
If I might throw my two cents in, when dual booting with windows I alaways use grubldr which hooks into the NTldr program which comes with windows.
It has been my experiance that windows is realy, realy bad at dealing with boot sectors that are not its own (such as GRUB or LiLo) and if your machine is set up to hibernate this will regularly destroy your linux boot sector. Several windows only virus scanners think that GRUB boot sectors are boot viruses and "clean" them, too.
Basicaly, Grubldr is a file that you add to your windows boot.ini and then when it boots NTldr (which normaly allows you to chose between various versions of windos) will alow you to chose between windows and GRUB (which then reads menu.lst where you can boot various flavours of linux). I have found it to be the best way to deal with MS buggy and badly thought out attemps at dealing with the boot sector.
I've never had this type of issue, but what you say is interesting. Where does grubldr come from? Do you havea link, etc?
i to use the windows boot loader to start grub
/dev/sda1 windows
------------
sdb 1,2 stuff
/dev/sdb3 fedora boot
/dev/sdb4 fedora 8
-----
with ntfs-3g installed
install windows
install fedora with grub on the first partition of fedora ( mine sdb3)
use rescue disk to boot the first time
chroot /mnt/sysimage
------- for my set up change as needed -----
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I shall continue to use F9, and hopefully there won't be any more problems.
