dual boot dual drive XP and FC6 problem

arjay · 05-19-2007, 10:14 AM

EDIT: found solution - see end of post

Sorry to raise this old chestnut again but I have tried a few recommended solutions without success.

Situation: I had Win XP installed on a single disk - primary master, hda. I wanted to play around with linux, so I installed a second HD. This is where I probably went wrong. To get the new disk to boot (and avoid wiping XP by mistake) I disconnected the XP drive. I then changed the jumpers to make the new disk hda and install Fedora Core 6.

I then re-connected the win XP drive (which now came up as hdb). So, If I set the win xp drive to boot first in bios, I get win XP booting fine. If I change the order of the drives in bios I can get fc6 to boot just fine. However, I can't get win xp to run from the grub menu.

I reckon that grub is in the MBR of the same disk as fc6. My grub.conf looks like this:

Code:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You do not have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda1
#          initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
# hiddenmenu
title MythDora (2.6.20-1.2944.fc6)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-1.2944.fc6 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.20-1.2944.fc6.img

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

Note - I added the win xp bit to try, but the rootnoverify and chainloader expressions just echo to the screen and then the system hangs. BTW - if I change the rootnoverify line to (hd1,1) the error report says "no such partition" which is interesting I guess. Grub is trying to do something!!

fdisk -l shows:

Code:

[root@tranquil ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        3824    30716248+  83  Linux
/dev/hda2            3825        4079     2048287+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda3            4080       30401   211431465   83  Linux

Disk /dev/hdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1   *           1       30400   244187968+   7  HPFS/NTFS
[root@tranquil ~]#

The bios is setup as follows:

Code:

1st boot device: CDROM
2nd boot device: hdd-0 (linux)
3rd boot device hdd-1 (Win XP)

Not sure what else I can offer in the way of data but just ask and I'll get it posted.

TIA

arjay

EDIT - just to eliminate the usual advice for a first step - I tried this:

linux rescue via the first fc disk.
chroot /mnt/sysimage
cd /boot/grub
grub-install --recheck /dev/hda

This ran without any problems and returned this description of the device map:
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdb.

This corresponds to what I expected.

However, when I rebooted into fc6, and chose the win xp option from the grub menu, it still hangs with rootnoverify (hd1,0) and chainloader +1 just echoed to the screen.

FC6 boots just fine from the grub menu

EDIT: OK - I found the answer by trying a combination of a couple of posts in Fedora Forum:

Change the win xp section in grub.conf to:

Code:

 title Windows XP Professional
        root (hd1,0)
        chainloader +1
        map (hd0) (hd1)
        map (hd1) (hd0)
        makeactive

Hope this helps someone!!

Richard

PlancksCnst · 05-20-2007, 09:40 AM

That sure sounds like a big hassle. I'd leave the XP drive connected next time. I've not once had Linux wipe out an XP installation (and I've done it tons of times). In fact, most distributions' installers these days will see the Windows installation (and quite possibly other OSs, too), and automatically configure GRUB. It works quite well. Also, If you are nervous about installing GRUB to the MBR of your Windows disk, you can have it install to the MBR of your Linux disk, then in your BIOS, you can switch between the two disks which one boots.

arjay · 05-20-2007, 11:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PlancksCnst

That sure sounds like a big hassle. I'd leave the XP drive connected next time. I've not once had Linux wipe out an XP installation (and I've done it tons of times). In fact, most distributions' installers these days will see the Windows installation (and quite possibly other OSs, too), and automatically configure GRUB. It works quite well. Also, If you are nervous about installing GRUB to the MBR of your Windows disk, you can have it install to the MBR of your Linux disk, then in your BIOS, you can switch between the two disks which one boots.

Sure - I agree with you re the reliability of it. You need to do it a few times before you believe it though<g>. I had a problem, though, during the install when it kept crashing just as it was about to write the grub (after all the files had been installed - in fact where it was "cleaning up" at the end of the install). This left me in limbo where I had to do the dreaded"FIX-this, FIX-that" routine in Windows to get it to boot. Got fed up with that.

I found that the only way I could safely do it was to do it one disk at a time. I thought, at the time, that maybe the power supply was failing and that it could not power both disks running flat out at the same time. However, I never had any problem since, so i guess it wasn't that.

In the end I did install grub to the MBR on the linux drive because the other HD was unplugged.

Anyway - all's well now so I might just leave well alone. I am lucky in that I have several other PCs on the network to play with. I am a compulsive linux player (not expert though - just a linux junkie).