FC2 XP dual boot fix?
 

I am excited to know that redora linux core 2 is out but i heard that there is a serious bug that alter the dual booting using grub with windows xp and windows 2000.

they say that grub will damage the partition table that causes windows unable to boot after installing FC2.

what is the problem now?
what causes this?
will installing the boot information onto the /boot partition and use NT boot loader to boot linux solve this problem?

booting linux using nt boot loader:-
http://www.churches.net/students/xli...t-ntloader.htm

i have not downloaded the iso Fedora core 2 yet but after heard of this bug i have stoped my attempt to download it.

if this problem can be fix then i will stright away downlaod the whole 4 disk of fedora core 2 and upgrade my machine from redhat linux 9.

what is your experience with fedora core 2?

My mbr was fried..
 

Hey, well i'll tell you, i haven't heard anything about this bug and i'm (or was) that kind of people who install the new distro as soon as it comes out (on stable version).... i did that yesterday and now i don't have a windows bootable machine... :(

I tried everything i know to fix this, reinstall both OS, change the partitions, erase them and creat them again, fixboot and fixmbr with winXP CD, etc.. and nothing works.. if anyone knows how to recover my system please tell me..

Thanks a lot..

here is the real problem..!!
 

I was doing some research about this problem with Fedora Core 2 and i think i found the real problem and a really good and certain explanation for it..

Form the Fedora developers to and individual (O'Reilly):

Jack Aboutboul responded:


I was alerted of this blog entry just a short time ago, and after reading it, I was pretty shocked at what was posted. I just wanted to send you some information regarding the bug you talk about and hope that you can somehow update this blog entry with the correct information, so as not to cause confusion.

The bug you speak about in the article stems [from] a few subtle,yet key feature changes that have happened within the 2.6 kernel. For 2.6 the kernel developers pulled out certain functionality from within the kernel related to Hard Disk geometry. In 2.6 the developers though that it may be wiser to have user space take control of things such as HD geometry. There is still discussion as to whether or not this was such a bright idea.

In addition to that, it is noted in the bugzilla report that the cause of this bug seems to be a CHS geometry problem. This problem most likely stems from an error within the parted utility, addressing bios incorrectly. In fact, many users with this bug reported that it disappeared after updating their bios to newer versions. Other than that, exhaustive testing has been done on this bug and newer machines did not seem to have this problem. It was almost totally non-reproducible.

I hope that I have been able to shed some light on this issue. You do very great work, and we salute you for trying to bring to the surface what seems like a stop-ship bug. However, I hope that the information I have provided you with will help you further investigate this problem so that you can update your blog, and spare the Fedora Project some great amounts of nonsensical FUD, that will undoubtedly be spread around by many unknowing readers of your blog.

Mr. Aboutboul in a later message said:


It is an issue that people should know about. The truth of the matter is, that almost none of the developers dual boot, and hence,no testing. Even the few that did try it, did so on IBM laptops and desktops, and didnt have any problems.




I think this is more than clear...
Bye

Might not be a fix for everyone especialy if you dont have 2 HDD, the way I got around this problem was to unplug the power from the HDD with winXp on it and install FC2, then there is no problem with the boot, on the down side though, I k=now have to select the boot sequence every time I want the other OS :).


Windows is to Linux as INTEL is to AMD.
Complete your rebirth and make the switch.

It's a known bug with mandrake 10, not heard of it affecting FC but if it's a kernel thing then I suppose it would cause probs.

then why it dosent happens to my redhat 9 which i upgraded the kernel to the current kernel 2.6.5?

then why it dosent happens to my redhat 9 which i upgraded the kernel to the current kernel 2.6.5?

Because it apparently happens when you use the diskdrake tools with the 2.6 kernel

For those who want to read a good summary:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedor.../msg00908.html

And the actual Bugzilla discussion:
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/....cgi?id=115980

I am disappointed at the attitude many people in the linux & developer communities are showing. Its a serious BUG for those people that it affects, and it has been known about for a while.

the solution does't work for me...
 

I've tried the command that's propouse for the redhat and fedora people and it doesn't work. It gives me this error:

Reading the partition table again...
BLKRRPART: Device busy
The order for reading the table again has failed.
restart the system now, before use mkfs.

If you've created or modified a DOS partition, like /dev/foo7, use dd(1)
in order to set to zero the 512 first bytes: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/foo7 bs=512 count=1
(See fdisk(8).)

My system language is spanish so i've translated the error messages.

if you know something please tell me... i need to recover my disc :(

Would it be possible to install fedora, copy the mbr to a file, then install win xp and use the xp bootloader to boot fedora. Ive done this many times on redhat 9/8 and slack 9.1. But would it still be affected by the same problem.

PS. Im still using win2k happily with fedora rc2, and it boots ok.

demmylls,
As long as you don't try to change the partion sizes your installation of FC2, it should not affect your XP. I have a dual boot with XP/FC2 on my laptop. I did a clean install of FC2 and I encountered no problems at all.

-AJ

P.S: check the link
http://lwn.net/Articles/86835/

(Edit was neccesary as I had forgotten to add the link)

anandj,

so that means that i just select format my hda5(/boot), hda6(/), hda7(swap) partition which is my existing redhat 9 installation parition and then install fedora fc 2 on those partitions, then i'll be fine.

is this what you mean?
if this is true then i guess i'll download and install them right away.

Worked first time for me. Now I have 3 choices:

XP Home (default)
FC2 (with original kernel)
FC2 (with new compiled kernel)

I didn't change my partition sizes during installation. Looks like that is the problem. I had originally partitionned with Partition Magic but now it won't load complaining of not being able to read a Drive Letter. Ah well I don't need it right now anyway, I'm happy with my system the way it is.

I installed Fedora 2 on a clean new hard drive last night, and after that, my Win2k would not boot from GRUB. I panicked, naturally -- but the solution seems to be just going into your BIOS at boot-up, going into the hard drives section and changing the access mode from "auto" to LBA. This worked for me. A huge relief considering that much of my image data resides in the Win partition. I would love to be 100% Linux were it not for my reliance on Adobe Photoshop.. it still does stuff that Gimp can't do. Anyway try this, Juan... it worked for me. I'm not sure I know what else to suggest. I'm just aghast that this "bug" wasn't pointed out before. It would have saved me some high blood pressure and a lot of time had I known about it beforehand.


artemis
:cry: