No volume groups found
 

I have installed windows xp and Fedora8 on my system. I have not properly shutdown my system last night. Next morning when i try to boot fedora,, i got following Error message on my screen

Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting from the kernel.
Red Hat nash version 5.0.32 starting
Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while...
No volume groups found
Unable to find volume group "VolGroup00"
Unable to access resume device (/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01)
mount: could not find filesystem '/dev/root'
setuproot: moving /dev failed: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /proc: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: No such file or directory
switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory


Can any body guide me how to fix it ? OR at least how can i get backup of my data from windows.

will not boot fed 8
 

It looks like the master boot record (MBR) has been currupted. Either boot from a live cd or something like 'supergrub' but you will have to check the bios settings first and set the boot order to cd first. If you used a disk for the original fedora install that should have a rescue event on it for just such things.

Fred.

windows OS is working on my system. I have tried to insatll fedora8 from cd, but its rescue event is not working. NOw if i upgrade or install my DATA will be lost. how can i recover my data from windows.

one other thing i have given following arguments to kernal "all-generic-ide" . it shows only following ERROR,

setuproot: error mounting /proc: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: No such file or directory
switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory


is there any way that i can mount my file system before booting, or any other way. ???

Maybe this will help

http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-2186

I avoid lvm where possible since it's that bit harder to recover.

re dual booting
 

'can I mount a file system before booting' no.Your questions are confusing but I reiterate the original answer the MBR has been bu**ered. If the system still boots to Windows then use the Backup program to save your data to a pe drive/dvd, etc.
'supergrub' cd is probably a good bet but you could try Gparted to see what partitions are still there.

Fred.

The message given is post grub stage 1, so how do you figure it's an MBR issue?

MBR
 

If the error message comes after stage 1 then stage 2 is not loading correctly. This msybe a direct result of it not being shutdown correctly. Linux is not as forgiving on this front as say Windows, especially on a dual boot system. Booting from a disk with 'supergrub' or 'sysrescue'and following the prompts may cure this - at least in won't do any harm.

Fred.

The quoted error message is generated by the nash script run by the Initial RAM Disk image loaded by the GRUB stage 2 process, and occurs after GRUB has finished and passed control to the nash script to load the actual kernel. Therefore it is not related to the MBR nor GRUB.

The specific error message is generated when the nash script executed a pvscan to find all volume groups on all partitions on all drives on the computer. It means, of course, that it could find no volume groups at all. That implies either that the Logical Volume partition is "hosed," or that it has been corrupted. (For example, running fsck on a logical volume partition will destroy all volume groups in the logical volume. [Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. :D ])

I can't tell you what caused your LV partition to "barf," but I suggest that you download and burn one of the "rescue" live CDs and see if you can recover the partition. (I like the System Rescue Live CD, but there are many others available.)