windows not start
 

I have installed Windows XP in a slave hard drive and linux on the master hard drive, I have the grub bootloader and when I select the windows SO it doesn`t start (Windows have NFTS file System), what I have to do to Windows Start?

Thanks for the Help!!

Could you post your grub.conf? That would p'bly go a long way towards figuring out why windows won't start :)

-Laura

Re: windows not start
 

This is a feature of linux. Give it some time, you'll eventually appreciate it. :D

I believe you need to have windows on the primary partition, but I may be wrong.

grub.conf
 

my grub.conf is

#boot=/dev/hda
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

title=Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1


PD. I`m using Red Hat 9

Re: Re: windows not start
 

What he said

Is that the only solution??

I'm afraid so, you see, I have the same problem (sort of), I had Win2000 installed on the first partition, and XP on the second, when I decided to switch to Fedora Core 2 (which I had finally downloaded and burnt on cd's), I deleted the first partition, after having dumped the important stuff on the second partition, since then I've been unable to boot to WinXP. So I'm pretty sure Windows NEEDS to be on the first partition.

Well yes and no.

As I understand it linux is on hda and windows is on hdb.
You want windows on hda and linux on hdb.
Now you could re install and repartition etc.
or, You could make the slave drive the master and the master the slave (along with all the fun bios things that are involved in the process, plus switching drive jumpers)
Depending on how things are installed this may get windows running. You will, of course need to edit fstab and lilo/grub to now point to hdb instead of hda or linux will not boot after the switch. Plus you'll have to reinstall the MBR on the windows disk to boot windows, then overwite it with lilo after adding back the slave (linux) drive, which involves having a boot disk and telling it to boot the root partition from hdb and not hda because you would have have to make the linux boot disk while linux was on hda.

I would first try to make the windows drive boot windows as the only drive in the box. Once that works add the slave. Success depends on things I don't know regarding your installation. If you can get windows running alone, then get linux running as the only drive in the box, it's been set up as hda allready so that should not be a problem, plus lilo/grub are already installed on this drive. If linux boots (and it should) change the parameter in fstab and lilo/grub to hdb from hda and make this drive the slave. boot linux from the boot disk and reinstall lilo to the mbr on /dev/hda (windows).

And remember

Perfect Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance

Have alot of fun!!!

Well, sort of. It doesn't matter where the heck windows is, as long as the bootloader can find it.
Now, I use lilo, so I'm not good with grub syntax, but as long as you've got the bootloader's pointing at the right partitions nothing else should matter.

With that said, it's still better to have your bootable hard drive as master...it makes things simpler on the computer itself. So, if I were you I'd change the jumpers and swap the master+slave drives.
Then, boot up to linux, or boot disk (might have to use this, as grub will now not have a clue where anything is), and edit /etc/fstab so that everything that said /hda now says /hdb.
Then edit grub.conf. This is where it gets tricky for me, but syntax notwithstanding, edit the entry for Linux to point to /dev/hda1. Add an entry for Windows, and make sure that the root points to /dev/hdb.

There appears to be quite a nice grub dual-boot how-to here :)

I sounds like you are using Fedora Core 2 with Windows XP.
The bug that prevents Windows booting is a bug in Windows, not Linux (as it would seem). Check out http://lwn.net/Articles/86835/ for more information on it. Also do a search for "Fedora Core 2" "Windows XP" with google.