Installed Fedore core 2 T3 in a machine with RedHat 8 and Win 2000

chipix · 05-13-2004, 11:27 AM

Hi,

I wanted to install Fedore Core 2 T3 in a separate hard disk. My master HD contains a WIN 2000 installation (first partition) and a RedHat 8 installation (other partitions).

I installed Fedora at the second HDD and used the grub configuration suggested by the installer, thatis booting with 2 options: 1. Windows, 2. Fedora.

I continued with the installation and when i rebooted no GRUB menu was visible. There was only a blank screen with the word GRUB at the upper left part of the screen.

Have I done something wrong?

How can I go back to my previous grub configuration in order to boot to Win or to RedHat 8?

Thanks,
chipix

marghorp · 05-13-2004, 01:04 PM

Nothing wrong, just owerwriten the grub stage 2 or MBR

Nothing to worry about.
Do the following(type this in line by line).

find /grub/grub.conf
or
find /boot/grub/grub.conf (whichever gets you results.)

You should get a result in form of "(hdx,x) where x is a number"

Next:

root (hdx,x)
(type in the correct x you got from find command)

cat /grub/grub.conf
or
cat /boot/grub/grub.conf
(again, whichever gets you some results)

(this should print the content of your grub.conf file)

You will see some lines

title=Win 2000
rootnoverify(hdx,x)
chainloader +1

title=Red hat 8
kernel bla bla bla
initrd bla bla bla

You have to type in the lines kernel and initrd under redhat 8
one by one
and after that type in

boot

That should get you into the Red Hat 8.

Once in there su to root and type in your root password. And finally run

/sbin/grub-install /dev/hdx (where x is the drive you have rh8 on)

reboot

Now you should see a grub menu

However (you should write commands into grub, to get you familiar with grub) you can just put in your Fedora CD 1 or Red hat 8 CD 1 and boot from that and only continue from su-ing and running /sbin/grub-install

Hope you get it right. And happy Linux use.

Peace!

Grymme · 05-13-2004, 01:15 PM

How does your /boot/grub/menu.lst look like? (the one from the system you installed grub)

Getting that grub> thing when you boot isn't the worst thing actually.. it means your grub works somewhat but it lacks a menu (which is what the menu.lst is for).

To start windows from that prompt you can type:

Code:

rootnoverify    (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader = (hd0,0)+1

Do you know what your kernel is named?

then you could do something like for the redhat

Code:

root (hd0,1)
kernel  /boot/nameofyourkernel root=/dev/hda2 ro vga=791

And for your fedora on the second HD (first partition)

Code:

root (hd1,0)
kernel  /boot/nameofyourkernel root=/dev/hdb1 ro vga=791

if you don't want 1024x768 graphics then skip the vga thing

In your menu.lst these commands should go after a

Code:

title Whateveryouwant

For a 2.4 kernel the cdwriters might work bad if you don't emulate scsi. This is done by putting this in the kernel commandline (like after vga=791)

Code:

hdc=ide-scsi

Try to mess around but be sure NOT to do something like grub-install /dev/hda1 (or where your windows partition is) because that will kill your windows boot and you will have to work some to fix it.

edit: ** took me too much time to write so someone else made it before. Perhaps it can be usefull anyway **

chipix · 05-14-2004, 03:03 AM

Grymme,

The screen is not displaying "grub>" prompt but "GRUB " and I cannot write anything.

marghorp,

where to execute the find commands? I have used booted wth Linux rescue mode and I have mounted the fedora installation.

How should I continue? My grub.conf in the fedora core installation is the following:

timeout=20
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Fedora Core 2 T3 (2.6.5-1.327)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.327 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.327.img

title Windows 2000
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Thanks

marghorp · 05-14-2004, 04:18 AM

How do you know what your grub.conf looks like if you cant write anything to GRUB? How did you get into Linux then?

If you're in there once, just do a

grub-install /dev/hda

as root of course

chipix · 05-14-2004, 04:22 AM

I updated the grub installation with the Red Hat 8 installation CD. Now I can boot to windows and Red Hat 8. Now my grub.conf is the following:

default 1
timeout 15
splashimage=(hd0,5)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-14)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=LABEL=/
initrd /initrd-2.4.18-14.img
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
title Fedora Core 2 T3 (2.6.5-1.327)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.327 ro root=/dev/hdb1=/1 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.327.img

When I select the Fedora option in grub boot menu it displays the following error:

root (hd1,0)

System error: Cannot find hard disk.

Any suggestions?

marghorp · 05-14-2004, 04:29 AM

Check if it is connected correctly. There is some problem. MAybe it is hardware related.

chipix · 05-18-2004, 07:13 AM

Yes, it ws h/w related. In BIOS the second disk was not properly declared. Due to the fact that GRUB uses bios information to read the disk configuration, the problem was solved

marghorp · 05-18-2004, 11:25 AM

Nice.