had windows 7, installed fedora 12 on partition, now windows won't boot

bieszke2 · 02-09-2010, 05:42 PM

i think I explained the problem pretty well. If you need more info to help, let me know. Just so you guys know, I am pretty new to linux. I like it, but I also want the option of booting windows.

sycamorex · 02-09-2010, 06:27 PM

Look at this tutorial:
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Grub2

It's about grub2 configuration on gentoo, but I guess it's not distro specific.

bieszke2 · 02-09-2010, 06:36 PM

well, do you have any suggestions about what to do? I am fairly familiar with commands, and I know what grub is, but I don't know how to change it.

sycamorex · 02-09-2010, 06:40 PM

First of all, what's your partition setup?
Can you post the output of (as root)
fdisk -l

bieszke2 · 02-09-2010, 06:58 PM

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa0000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 4 32098+ de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 5 664 5295104 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 665 1309 5180962+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda4 1310 19131 143149052 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5 * 665 690 204800 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 690 1309 4975615+ 8e Linux LVM

Disk /dev/dm-0: 2977 MB, 2977955840 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 362 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: 2113 MB, 2113929216 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 257 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

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

sycamorex · 02-09-2010, 07:07 PM

I assume that /dev/sda2 is where your windows system is.

Add this entry to /etc/grub/grub.cfg

Code:

menuentry "Window 7" {
        set root=(hd0,2)
        chainloader +1
}

I don't know how windows 7 boots up so you might also add another one:

Code:

menuentry "Window 7 sda1" {
        set root=(hd0,1)
        chainloader +1
}

Once you have saved it, reboot the computer and see if you can boot into windows from one of those two entries.

bieszke2 · 02-09-2010, 07:16 PM

how would I go about adding the entry? I got to to folder, I'm not sure what to do after that.

syg00 · 02-09-2010, 07:24 PM

Does F12 even use grub2 ?. Not mentioned in the release notes, and I don't recall it when I installed.
(This post to remind me to look when I get home)

@bieszke2, let's see the optput from "ls /boot/grub"

sycamorex · 02-09-2010, 07:25 PM

Go to the command line (terminal/konsole) type 'su' to become root.
Then type:

Code:

nano /etc/grub/grub.cfg

Copy and paste the two entries. Save it and then close it:
ctrl+o ===> 'Enter' ===> ctrl+x.

sycamorex · 02-09-2010, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

Does F12 even use grub2 ?. Not mentioned in the release notes, and I don't recall it when I installed.
(This post to remind me to look when I get home)

@bieszke2, let's see the optput from "ls /boot/grub"

For god's sake, why did I assume that it's grub2?!!! I think it still uses grub.
My apologies for it.

bieszke2 · 02-09-2010, 07:33 PM

device.map grub.conf minix_stage1_5 stage2
e2fs_stage1_5 iso9660_stage1_5 reiserfs_stage1_5 ufs2_stage1_5
fat_stage1_5 jfs_stage1_5 splash.xpm.gz vstafs_stage1_5
ffs_stage1_5 menu.lst stage1 xfs_stage1_5

sycamorex · 02-09-2010, 07:33 PM

Please, disregard whatever I've written so far. I wrongly assumed Fedora is using the latest version of grub.
As syg00 suggested, try:

Code:

ls /boot/grub

If you can see the file called menu.lst

open it with nano and add the following entries

Code:

title Windows 7 A
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title Windows 7 B
root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

bieszke2 · 02-09-2010, 07:52 PM

Windows A did not work.
Windows B kind of worked.
It displayed "BOOTMGR is missing"
Is there anything I can do about that?

sycamorex · 02-10-2010, 03:12 AM

Boot your computer with windows 7 dvd and use the repair feature. It will overwrite grub, but that's something that can be easily restored either with fedora dvd or even easier with supergrub cd.

bieszke2 · 02-10-2010, 10:13 AM

Yeah, I just did that yesterday. It didn't overwrite the grub, it just put in a new bootmgr. I guess Windows 7 is famous for deleting its own bootmgr. All works fine now, thanks for the help.