GRUB boot of XP hangs at flashing cursor

Richter12x2 · 05-19-2010, 08:34 PM

I installed Fedora 11 today, because I'm really looking to replace Windows. I've been running a Fedora 11 webserver at home for over a year, but this is Linux, which means that I spent about 8 hours on it over a year ago, and then only logged in once or twice since. :P

So after the install, I booted to a GRUB prompt and no menu. After searching around, I changed my BIOS settings to Large for the hard drive, and got the GRUB menu to load, and now I'm posting this from within Fedora 11, and after some good healthy exercises with the soundcard, xvid drivers, and a few other things, it's great.

When I load XP from Grub, I just get a flashing underscore and no progress.

XP is installed in the first partition, and has been there for a few months.

Here's my grub.conf:

Code:

#boot=/dev/sda
default=1
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,5)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora
        root (hd0,5)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.x86_64 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_joshlin-lv_root rhgb quiet
        initrd /initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.x86_64.img
title Windows XP
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
        makeactive
        chainloader +1

I still need it for things like Quicken and Photoshop. Thanks in advance!

Larry Webb · 05-19-2010, 08:50 PM

Your menu.lst looks right, open terminal and as root 'fdisk -l' without the quotes. Copy and paste the results. As a rule windows needs to be in the first partition or be made to think it is.

alan99 · 05-19-2010, 09:11 PM

Could you provide some info on your machine and its partitions? It might be possible that XP is not the first partition. I once had problems with a computer whose disk got corrupted. I had to find out that the first partition was really a hidden rescue partition (unfortunately it was corrupted and wouldn't boot), before I could figure out how to fix it.

Richter12x2 · 05-19-2010, 11:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larry Webb

Your menu.lst looks right, open terminal and as root 'fdisk -l' without the quotes. Copy and paste the results. As a rule windows needs to be in the first partition or be made to think it is.

Sure thing - here's the output. Made me wonder for a moment as it didn't appear to do anything. After logging in as 'su' it came back. Just in case anyone else has the same issue.

Here's the output

Code:

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 750.1 GB, 750155292160 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1453518 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8b1dfe42

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1      101587    51199816+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2          101588     1453517   681372720    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5          101588     1320635   614400000    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6   *     1320635     1321042      204799+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7         1321042     1453517    66767887+  8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/dm-0: 62.6 GB, 62679678976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7620 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: 5687 MB, 5687476224 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 691 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

I'm guessing it has something to do with not having a valid partition table - how do I get one of those?

Richter12x2 · 05-19-2010, 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alan99

Could you provide some info on your machine and its partitions? It might be possible that XP is not the first partition. I once had problems with a computer whose disk got corrupted. I had to find out that the first partition was really a hidden rescue partition (unfortunately it was corrupted and wouldn't boot), before I could figure out how to fix it.

It's a homebuilt computer with 1 physical 750GB SATA drive, so none of the dodgy HP/Dell/IBM rescue partitions. Windows had two partitions of its own, a 50 GiB System Partition and a 650 GiB Data partition. I squished the Data partition to allow 60ish GiB for Fedora, and it took another 200 MiB for Grub, I think is how it worked.

Also, as part of trying to make it work, I tried to add the bootable flag in DiskPart after I finally had Fedora working for sda1 - it wasn't checked before. When I checked it though, it never actually finished, and I ended up cancelling about an hour later to restart.

kurwongbah · 05-20-2010, 12:31 AM

Just to get my head around thge sequence of events

You installed Windows long ago.
Then installed Fedora just now and it didn't boot.
After that you went into the BIOS and changed the LBA setting.
Now you are able to boot Linux but Windows don't work no more!?

It might take a reinstall of Windows after that BIOS change...

vigi · 05-20-2010, 02:20 AM

I am not sure if this will help but my version of grub has a different entry to load vista and xp.

title Windows Vista (on /dev/sda1)
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
#
#
title Windows XP, 98 (on /dev/sda1)
map (hd0,0) (hd0,0)
map (hd0,0) (hd0,0)
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

alan99 · 05-20-2010, 02:40 AM

I'm not sure why you only have one primary and put the extended partition on partition #2, but I guess it would still be allowed. I don't know why you have two partitions marked as boot. Mine is dual boot (grub2 -- vista and Debian linux) I only have the first partition (Vista) marked as bootable.

alan99 · 05-20-2010, 03:12 AM

Looks like your using a Logical Volume (not sure why you would do that if you only have one drive -does Fedora do that by default?) I don't know if that is why you are getting the error message about the partitions (I'm not familiar with Logical Volumes)

syg00 · 05-20-2010, 03:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alan99

I'm not sure why you only have one primary and put the extended partition on partition #2, but I guess it would still be allowed.

No problem.

Quote:

I don't know why you have two partitions marked as boot. Mine is dual boot (grub2 -- vista and Debian linux) I only have the first partition (Vista) marked as bootable.

This could be a problem - for Windoze. Remove the boot flag on /dev/sda6.

Richter12x2 · 05-20-2010, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

No problem.This could be a problem - for Windoze. Remove the boot flag on /dev/sda6.

Removed the boot flag in Parted and verified it was gone in fdisk - no change. Still boots to flashing cursor when I try to load the Windows partition.

Richter12x2 · 05-20-2010, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vigi

I am not sure if this will help but my version of grub has a different entry to load vista and xp.

title Windows Vista (on /dev/sda1)
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
#
#
title Windows XP, 98 (on /dev/sda1)
map (hd0,0) (hd0,0)
map (hd0,0) (hd0,0)
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

I added the map statements to grub.conf and retried, and still no change. Still the flashing underscore in the top left of the screen.

Richter12x2 · 05-20-2010, 09:49 AM

Alright, I've had some mixed success:

If I switch the harddrive access mode back to normal, I get the Grub prompt instead of the menu. If I load the commands manually, then Windows loads just fine.

Now knowing that - is there a way I can make them both operate from the GRUB menu? I thought I remembered seeing a command to tell grub to use LBA or notLBA addressing?

Richter12x2 · 05-20-2010, 04:10 PM

Looks like it was actually in the partition tool instead of GRUB. Flagging the Windows Partition as LBA = off didn't do anything for me.

10110111 · 05-20-2010, 04:16 PM

Try adding

Code:

boot

line after this one:

Code:

initrd /initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.x86_64.img

. I've had some problems when this command wasn't specified.