Hi guys, im completely new to linux and since i just bought a new computer i figured i might as well try and install linux after a fresh install of windows 7. so i chose fedora 14. However, its been 4 - 5 days now and i still cant get it to work >< im so frustrated atm. Ive tried all different guides and none of them works. im not sure what to do. alright heres the story:
Firstly, i installed windows 7 (fresh). its simple and its working. so thats good.

then 1), i tried installing fedora using this guide http://www.thpc.info/dual/win7/dualb...r_on_win7.html and basically after i reboot nothing happens... it just goes straight to windows 7 ... ignoring grub bootloader completely. My partition that i used while doing this is something like
sda1 - 100mb win boot (grub should be installed here)
sda2 - 200gb Local disc C
sda3 - 1.2TB local disc D
sda4 - Extended
---sda5 / 150gb
---sda6 /home 50gb

so i guess that doesnt work..., so i tried different guide

2nd try) i used this guide http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2010/11/09...and-windows-7/ i follow this guide step by step with a similar partiton compared to the one shown in the guide. My partition was:
LVM- vg_asdasd
-lv_root
-lv_home
-lv_swap

sda1 - 100mb win boot (windows 7 bootloader here)
sda2 - 200gb Local disc C
sda3 - 1.2TB local disc D
sda4 - Extended
---sda5 /boot 500mb
---sda6 LVM 200gb

ok so this guide involves easyBCD configuration. im not familiar with this stuff so what i did was follow the guide. once i did all the easyBCD stuff and reboot ... picked Fedora 14 option and i ended up with a black screen with blinking cursor. Ok... so that doesnt seem to work. So i did some research in random forums. SO i tried experimenting by clicking the "Grub isnt installed to the MBR". While that gets me to grub command line ... but it still failed to boot giving something like "Error 15: file not found, grub/grub.conf or something".

I was pretty frustrated at this point and i just go nuts trying everything i see from google search. this include booting thru the live CD and checking the partition using "sudo fdisk -l" it gives me the partition but it shows something like "Disk /dev/dm-0 doesnt contain a valid partition table" it worries me, im not sure if that has to do with anything. so i ignored it. then i also tried grub-install command (doesnt work giving errors "does not have any corresponding BIOS drive") i tried grub-install --recheck command gives "/boot/grub/device.map: no such file or directory". i tried random command like "fdisk /mbr" not sure what it does but it doesnt work anyway "unable to open /mbr". Furthermore i also did "grub" then "root (hd0,0)" and "setup (hd0)" attempting to install to mbr again ... but doesnt work it gives "Error 17: cannot mount selected partition".

I tried alot more than that ... this includes downloading and burning the super grub disk ... no success. using the live cd i can browse thru my partition and i do see the grub folder... but i dont know why ... or what ... grub doesnt seem to work... etc i cant get to the second phase of fedora installation. ive reinstalled windows 7 a few times now and uses the recovery cd for quite a lot of time. My journey with linux has been uphill so far. im hoping to achieve something out of this.. so im not giving up yet and hence my last resort is to ask for help in forums like this.

I know thats quite a huge wall of text. thanks to whoever that reads it up to this point. help!

At First Glance i would recommend that you reinstall fedora and put the /boot in its own primary partition.

So it would look something like this
sda1 - 100mb win boot (windows 7 bootloader here)
sda2 - 200gb Local disc C
sda3 - 1.2TB local disc D
sda4 - /boot 500mb
sda5 - Extended
---sda6 LVM 200gb (inside of this will be your / , /home, swap, etc)

That's almost always a result of not installing Grub to the master boot record. In the first tutorial you linked to, they explain how to install Grub to the mbr. Either you missed something or it didn't work for whatever reason.

No, grub should not be installed there. That is your windows 7 boot partition and if you installed Grub boot files there they would undoubtedly overwrite what is there and you would not be able to boot windows.

The second tutorial you linked to is very basic and I doubt if it would be much use to someone new to Fedora. You would also have been better off selecting the Create Custom Layout option as it gives you a lot more control over the process,.

You need to read a little more so you understand what you are doing. The commands above will write Grub to your windows 7 boot partition, which may be one reason you had to reinstall windows 7. If you want to use those commands, the first part needs to be to the partition on which you have Fedora, in your case I guess it would be sda5 if that is your /boot partition. So it would be root (hd0,4), then setup (hd0).

I see you are using LVM and I have no experience with it.

I just noticed the line above, what exactly does that mean? Did you not actually complete your Fedora installation? You should see a window which says "Congratulations, Your Fedora installation is complete. Did you?

you ask half a dozen people and you will get 6 different answers -- all right answers too.

i find life is much easier ( when dealing with MS ) to let MS Windows 7 have the MBR on the FIRST drive
service pack 1 WILL NEED IT THERE !!! also some AV and even MS will write small files to the MBR area ( and if grub is there and NOT MS's bootloader - a mess can result)

So i let it have it .

and put Grub on the FIRST Linux partition !!!

then use Gparted to move the "boot" tag to grub from MS

fedora will see windows 7 and auto set " other" to that

Thanks for the replies guys. I solved it by moving Local Disk D: to an Extended Partition and install fedora /boot on sda3. It seems that my hard disk only has 3 primary partition (can u have more?) cos i couldnt add another primary partition /boot on sda4 it just keeps creating extended for some reason (so vegan's partition thing wouldnt work on my comp it would say "not enuff space" or something). yea yancek, i used those command attempting to install grub to mbr but yea.. failed. btw the second guide has more pages (1-4). "second phase of fedora installation" what i meant was the creating user part etc. Anyway, i solved it now it dual boots perfectly so im happy. i didnt know that /boot thing has to be installed to the primary partition... noone (no guide) said anything about that.

Linux CAN boot from every partition primary or secondary .

I'd agree with JohnVV about leaving windows on the mbr, particularly if you have a new computer as my understanding is having anything else will void the manufacturer warranty. Not really sure about that. If you have vista or win 7, BCD usually (?) works pretty well and may be easier for someone new to Linux.

I'd agree with ronlau9, Linux can boot from primary or logical partitions and they don't need to be marked active, at least I've never done that on any machine and currently don't and all systems boot.

You can have up to four primary partitions. Whether you could create another primary partition on your computer is something no one could tell you unless you posted the actual output of fdisk command.

I apologize for that. I forgot to put which partitions were primary and which were extended...

I am glad you got it all figured out though

Welcome to Fedora! I love it here