I just installed Fedora Core 3 on my PC without the boot loader because I didn't want it to mess up my Windows partitions. I thought the installation would ask me to create a boot disk but it didn't so I am now unable to load Fedora Core 3. Anyone knows where and how I can create a boot disk?

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

You can just install Grub at the start of your root (/) partition and leave MBR in the hand of Windows. Then write Grub boot sector into a file and add an entry to your Windows' boot.ini to load up that file. Now you have a dual boot menu managed by Windows so it wouldn't cry.

If you still prefer a separate boot CD or floppy then follow this link

http://www.webservertalk.com/message554371.html

Follow the instructions there but no need to make a rescue CD. Put your Installation CD in and enter this for boot options:

linux rescue

After you're in rescue console, do this to change root to system image:

# chroot /mnt/sysimage

Then follow the instructions for making a floppy.

Good luck.

Boy, I just went through this exact scenerio. I wasn't able to locate much help, but I finally put bits and pieces together to get the job done. Like you, I did NOT want to install grub to my MBR just yet.

The reason you are not offered the option to create a boot floppy is because the kernel will not fit on a floppy. You need to create a "boot CD".

You say you already have Windows partitions. Hopefully one of those might be FAT32 or FAT, so you can pass stuff between Linux and Windows. You will need to create an boot image as an iso file (you can do this easily, see below). Then you need to burn this iso to a CD. I don't know how to do that in Linux just yet, so I transferred the iso from Linux to Windows via that FAT32 partition I mentioned above. Once I had the iso in Windows I was able to burn it to a CD. Boot from that CD and YEAH!!! ... you're in Linux.

Here's the steps:

(1) Boot off of disk one of your Core 3 installation set
(2) At the boot prompt, type "linux rescue"
(3) Eventually it will get around to asking you for, what is it, your keyboard and mouse preferences? I can't remember what it asked about exactly, but just hit ENTER to take the default for both questions since you can obviously read/type English!
(4) It will find your system image and mount it as /mnt/sysimage offering to let you do that as read-only. Do NOT choose read-only. You will need to create a directory and read-only will not all that.
(5) You will get a command line prompt that ends with a pound sign "#". At that prompt, enter "chroot /mnt/sysimage" just like the booting process will have instructed you to.
(6) Now here's where you make use of that FAT32 partition. If you only have NTFS then Fedora cannot write to that and you'll have to come up with some other way to transfer an iso image to Windows (or learn how to burn it to a CD right from the Linux command prompt - I don't know how to do that).
(7) Enter "mkdir /mnt/vfat"
(8) You will now need to know which partition your FAT32 (vfat) partition is. Hopefully you've read up on Linux and understand how it names disks and partitions. In my case, my FAT32 partion is known to Linux as /dev/hda6 (i.e., "the second logical partition in the extended partition of the first hard disk")
(9) You need to mount that FAT32 partition. In my case, the command was "mount -t vfat /dev/hda6 /mnt/vfat"
(10) Now we create the boot image. "mkbootdisk --verbose --iso --device /mnt/vfat/boot.iso `uname -r`" Note that those are backticks around the uname part of the command.
(11) Verify that you indeed have a boot image. "ls -l /mnt/vfat" You should see the file.
(12) Unmount the FAT32 partition like this "umount /mnt/vfat"
(13) Now we head back to Windows to burn that iso.
(14) Eject your boot CD from the drive so your next boot will be back to Windows. For some reason mine wouldn't let me eject until after my system started to reboot. I kept hitting the eject button during the reboot until finally it spit up the disk.
(15) Not being 100% sure about how to best shutdown Linux from the command prompt, I fell back to some old (outdated?) Unix knowledge. I entered "sync;sync;sync;shutdown now". It complained about some missing file but I ignored that. I then typed "exit". Maybe I had to type "exit" twice. It should reboot. If not, push the BIG BUTTON on the front of your computer!
(16) Hopefully you've now booted back into windows. Go find that boot.iso file. It should be in the root directory of your FAT32 drive. Might be C:, D:, E: or whatever depending on your setup.
(17) If you don't have a Windows program that will burn iso images, go download a free one from http://www.deepburner.com
(18) Install DeepBurner or use some other program to burn a CD from the boot.iso The file is very small so it shold burn quickly (seems a waste to only put a few megabytes on a CD, but CD's are cheap).
(19) Now cross your fingers and try to boot off of your newly created CD!!!

Man! I didn't know it was that complicated to make a simple boot disk.
Since my Windows partitions are all formatted with NTFS, I think I'll just reinstall Linux and use the GRUB Loader to dual boot my PC and pray that my Windows partitions are OK.

Thanks all the same!

I don't think you need to reinstall from scratch again to get grub into your MBR. I'm assuming that on the original install you asked to install grub, but to the first sector of your /boot partition (that was an install option). If you didn't do this initially, you probably WILL have to reinstall.

Otherwise, you can probably do steps (1) - (5) above to get to a Linux command prompt. From there you could run "grub-install". You need to research how to run grub-install. I think the command you need is something like "grub-install /dev/hda0" but DO NOT, repeat DO NOT, attempt this based on what I think I remember. You might royally hose your hard disk! Search these forums and you will surely find info on grub-install and how to make it install to your MBR, hopefully without making you sit through an entire reinstall of Fedora.

Hint: If you DO have to reinstall Fedora, and part of that comes down to repartitioning in your case, you might consider adding a small FAT32 partition while you're at it. I have a 1Gb FAT32 set up. Since this can be read and written by both Windows and Fedora, you have a simple way to move files back and forth between the two OS'es, should the need arise. Treat that partition like what Windows calls it's "Briefcase".

you can just type "grub-install /dev/hda" and it will install on the MBR, the hda is considered MBR by linux, hda1, would be the first partition, you do not need "/dev/hda0" to install grub on MBR...although, I wouldn't take my word on it, and just as haertig said, search the forums to see if you can find out.