Problems with GRUB on XP/FC2 dual-boot
 

Newbie to linux here hoping to find some clear help. A couple days ago I tried to install FC1 on my computer. I already had XP home on my first hard drive a Western Digital 60G, and part of my second hard drive a WD 80G was partitioned for windows. I installed FC1 with the graphical interface without any problems, however after reboot all I got was the following

GRUB_

(the _ blinking of course) so I tried reintalling a couple times, and have since installed FC2 in place of FC1 on my second hard disk. I still only get the black screen with GRUB_ . I am only able to use the linux rescue mode from the CD to interact with my computer at all. I apologize if this is common place to you and it seems I just haven't looked around for myself, but within the past two days I haven't really found out what I can do. Not sure what other info I should post about my system to get the best help with this situation. Thank you in advance for your patience with me. Hoping to hear back on this soon.

NTFS?...how many hard drives in system
 

Two Questions:

Is your xp install using an ntfs partition?

How many hard drives do you have in this computer?

The XP is using an ntfs partition and I have just the two hard drives. One is a 60G Western Digital, it came with the Dell with XP Home already installed on it. At the beginning of the summer I installed the second harddrive, the 80G WD that has another ntfs partion on it and I installed FC2 on free space that I left for it on the second harddrive (the 80G). I am still having the problem with only GRUB_ displaying after the BIOS screen. Thanks for any/all help, I'm still searching and am hoping a solution will not require wiping either hard drive.

Normaly if you have more than one hard disk drive, you should use the 'map' command to make the disk as the first disk and then continue. Please take a look into http://www.mcc.ac.uk/grub/grub_13.html#SEC87 and configure your 'menu.lst' accordingly.

hi
can u paste the output of

#fdisk

ur both drives here

regards

fdisk -l /dev/hda gives me the following:

Disk /dev/hda : 60.0GB, 60000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7294 cylinders
Units=cylinders of 16065*512=8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 4 32098+ de Dell Utility
/dev/hda2 * 5 7294 58556925 7 HPFS/NTFS


fdisk -l /dev/hdb gives me the following:

Disk /dev/hdb : 80.0GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units=cylinders of 16065*512=8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 8454 67906723+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb2 * 8455 8467 104422+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb3 8468 9566 8827717+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb4 9567 9727 1309297+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb5 9567 9727 1309266 82 Linux Swap

I haven't gotten a chance to look into the map command yet, I'll be looking at that next. Thanks again for the help. I'd be very grateful if future help was just a tad more explicit, I wasn't really sure what output of fdisk was needed and the like.

Edit:
I realize the above is a tad hard to read, is there any way to post things as a table so stuff like this is easier to digest?

hi there

i am not sure what is this for???
/dev/hda1 1 4 32098+ de Dell Utility

what is this used for...
can u access this partition in windows...i do not think so

regards

I'm not sure what it is either, I don't recall being able to access it before. Some wierd partition that Dell decided to put there I suppose. I don't know if you were suggesting that I try accessing it from Windows now, but if you were I can't boot into Windows at all, the only thing I can do at the moment is boot from the FC2 cd into the linux rescue mode shell.

As far as the map command goes, don't I have to have a grub prompt to use that? I found my menu.lst, but I'm not sure how to 'configure it accordingly'. Still looking for solutions on my own, but any/all help is still greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help so far everybody, I'm at least learning about stuff like the fdisk command :D .

hi

to re-install grub u need to run

#grub-install /dev/hda

post ur /etc/grub.conf here

regards

less /mnt/sysimage/etc/grub.conf yields the following:

default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.6.5-1.358)
root (hd1,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img
title DOS
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1


as for running

grub-install /dev/hda

gives me:

/sbin/grub: Not found.

running

grub -install /dev/hda

gives me:

grub: invalid option --i

running

grub <Enter>

grub> install /dev/hda

gives me:

Error 12: Invalid device requested


Thanks again for all the help so far, it is much appreciated.

hi
well the command is

grub-install /dev/hda

are u sure that ur 1st drive is primary master?
check that oout tooo
regards

I'm pretty sure my first drive is primary master... How exactly would I double check that, and if it isn't what should I do differently/change? Any other info I can provide that would help? Thanks again for the help =).

BIOS
 

Primary/Secondary Master/Slave settings are determined at the bios level. If your drives are on the same IDE cable, one must be set to master and one to slave.

Ideally you want the main hard disk as Primary Master and the other as Primary Slave...make sure jumper settings are correct.

for Drive1, it should either be on "Master (with slave present)" or Cable select.
for Drive2, it should either be "Slave" or Cable select.

If you enter setup at startup (before Linux loads) (usually by pressing Delete key), it will often tell you the primary master/slave...

email me at techno_chef@swissinfo.org for more info or details.

So my first hard drive (the 60GB, only XP and the wierd Dell partition, hda) is the master and the second hard drive (the 80GB, with an ntfs partition and FC2 on it, hdb) is the slave, definitly. I'm still confused as to exactly what difference it makes. Another thing, I've been looking around online a bit and found somewhere (sorry, can't find the link anymore) an example of someone else's grub.conf that was similar to mine. I posted what mine looks like above. Do I need to edit it in some fashion, or should it work just fine as is? Is there somewhere in particular that might be another good resource for finding the solution? I've tried looking through bugzilla but I didn't really find any solutions, or cases that involved the same symptoms, mostly just similar hardware/software situations and the like. Any pointers/further help is greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help thus far everybody.

Grub location
 

Is Grub installed in the Master Boot Record on hda or hdb?