Please help! Windows won't boot from grub.
 

I just installed FC2 on my 'big' computer. I already had WinXP on the primary drive (hda). I put Fedora on hdb. During the install, I chose to use grub, and it saw windows and stuff, so I thought it would be ok. Got Fedora all configured, and decided to try Windoze to make sure it still works. No luck! When I choose it in grub, it simply goes to a black screen and displays the information from /etc/grub.conf that is under the "windows" data. Here are 2 grub.conf files I tried (I've been doing a lot of googling to no avail).

-----after the install-------
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd1,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core 2
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1


------after googling-------------(same errors)
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core 2
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img
title Windows XP
unhide (hd0,0)
hide (hd0,1)
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot


Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! My email and music and stuff is still on the Windows drive, and it is NTFS, so I can't access it from Linux....

For your reading:
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/....cgi?id=115980

Follow all the links and references for a thorough reading.

Exactly the same installer bug that I've experienced .. follow the instruction on how to recover it back .. or .. just do like what I did .. reformat everything and go back to FC1 :D

No Fedora expert here, but is there some reason that you can't mount the partition with at least your music so that you could play it? Mail is, of course, a slightly different story, but you would be able to import it into a Linux client, or (if you use Mozilla or Thunderbird under both OSes), you could move the mail folder to a small FAT32 area if you have one available, and then it would be available to Linux and to Windows as well when you get back into it.

Does Fedora 2 not include NTFS read support? I thought that was half of the point of the thing, but I could be mistaken, as I don't follow Fedora closely.

THANKS!
 

Thank you to everyone who replied! I ended up changing the HD access mode to LBA, as mentioned in one of the bugzilla reports, and it worked!

Thanks again - you guys are what makes Linux as great as it is!

Hey,

Do you mind posting EXACLY what you did to make it work?
We are a lot of users having the same problem, and still havent been able to solve it...

Thanks in advance :)
Bambino

I've been reading through bugzilla, and following some of the other threads on this bug. The best "workaround" is to change your BIOS setting from either "auto" or "C/H/S" to "LBA" for the hard drive. Apparently Kernel 2.6 prefers to address the world with LBA and *something* corrupts the partition table in the process. I'd say if you can't change that setting in your BIOS and can't afford to lose your XP partition, then hold off until more is understood about this problem.

Many people are quoting a workaround that says, "boot from your XP cd and fixmbr". Many other people are also saying this doesn't repair the partition and allow booting.

I'm actually *very* disappointed that Fedora was released with this bug. It sure takes the "community" out of the "community-oriented" distro. I'm all for it being a testbed for RHEL, but there are a lot of things that are annoying (mp3 support, usb pen drive automount, disabled NTFS read support, my Olympus Stylus 300 STILL not supported, SELinux, this bug). I've only used RH distros since 6.2, but now I'm thinking about trying out Gentoo and maybe a few others. I've read the threads on the RH devel mailing list, and I was really disappointed at the tone and nature of the responses.

I'm happy to deal with bugs that have workarounds, but this is *serious*. It doesn't happen on all boards & systems--and be thankful if you have a system that just works.

I'm sorry for my rant, but this is something so serious that I can't give my buddes a copy of the FC2 CDs, and say "go for it, you won't mess anything up."

This is what I did:

- boot computer
- go into BIOS
- go to the section that shows the HDs
- go into the menu for the HD
- change 'access mode' from 'auto' to 'LBA'

Of course, this may be a bit different depending on your BIOS...

Hope that helps!

I don't think it is the kernel .. but most probably more on FC2/Grub specific .. I don't have problem running kernel 2.6.6 on FC1 .. definitley it wasn't the kernel that 'corrupts' the partition table ..

You're definitely right. Apparently this issue is also showing up in Mandrake 10, and one of the other big distros. Likely suspects seem to be GRUB and parted, but I haven't read anything where someone quotes some code and says, "THIS is the problem!"

I just hope it gets resolved soon!

This is unbelievable!!!! I have just had to reformat my entire 80Gb and reinstall WinXP. I have been through http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla...g.cgi?id=115980 and am still dumb founded. I am lucky in what was on my HDD wasn't all that important (mind you I think my wife is about ready to divorce me) but this is just bulls&*t. FC1 was an absolute dream to install I have had NO issue at all with any part of FC1 but I'm looking at FC2 with dagger eyes at this stage.

I'm bloody furious with what I'm having to do just to get an OS installed. Please don't get me wrong I can't stand the clunkiness of XP, but by God it's nowhere near as frustrating just to get on the hard drive and booting.

Now that thats out of the way, I'm going to try the LBA change tonight and see if that works.....if not another post will be forth coming with more expletives.

You guys do know that you could just boot with your WinXP installation disc and instead of installing Windows again just go to recovery and type in "fix boot" without the quotes. This will correct how Grub passes off to Windows at boot time. If you really screw things up, you can also do "fix mbr" from the recovery console and then re-install Grub and configure to your liking.

I don't see it as a problem with FC2, pretty much all distros have this problem if something quirky happens when Grub attempts to pass of booting to Windows. Its more to do with Windows wanting to be in the mbr and not wanting to share with Grub.

Just my 2 cents.

rberry88

The Bugzilla reports seem to say that that XP cannot repair itself in this situation, such as the report below:
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/...i?id=115980#c9

Tried that rberry88...no effect.

Okay, by reading the bugzilla posting from the link you provided it seems it pretty much only affects the users that are setting up Linux partitions when installing FC2 (or FC1) for that matter.

If you were previously dual booting with WinXP and FC1 and you are doing a upgrade then I would do just that, upgrade. Don't re-partition your drive(s) on an upgrade because that is what, it seems, is causing the problem -- if you want to re-partition your drive then you should first back up (onto disc) the info that you want carried over and do a fresh install and partition accordingly.

If you did a normal "upgrade" (i.e. no repartition, just update grub etc) then there would be no reason for the geometry readings on the partitions/drives to change which seems to be the common denominator of this problem. If you read the last few entries in that bugzilla link then you will see that the problem has been minimized to these instance (upgrade w/ re-partition) otherwise the simple "pop in the WinXP install (recovery) CD and fix boot or fix mbr" has worked fine for the others that have encountered this problem with a "normal upgrade".

rberry88

Comment #36 and #37 are what scare me:
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/...?id=115980#c36

I haven't seen any reports of this particular issue with FC1. I do agree that its really fishy that if you're not changing the partition table, that *something* is choosing to muck with it.

Look at when this bug was opened. February 17th, with FC2t1. TEST 1!!!!! and the bug remained open. sheesh.

You're not the only one .. !! Even reinstalling WinXP won't do any good .. missing operating system .. and I went the hard way .. reformatting the whole bloody thing and went back to FC1 ..

The people that are having problems, why don't you post your partition scheme here (and computer specs) so the rest of us could see if we spot any problems to try to help.

I've had Red Hat installed since version 8, then version 9, then FC1 and now FC2 with either WinME, XP Home and now XP Pro and haven't encounted this bug. I did have to do the "fixboot" option once before when I was experimenting with a multi-boot that included Arch Linux but that was an easy fix.

rberry88

Hi rberry

Please look at my posts in another thread regarding my detailed settings. I still cant make it work!

The LBA setting change is not applicable for me due to the raid configuration, since my HD's with Windows XP are not on the primary or secondary IDE channels.

I would really appreciate if you have the time to look at it. If you need me to post my detailed settings again I am happy to do it.

Regards,
Bambino

FYI - my configuration is described in the thread:

grub wont boot windows on second hard drive

i'd advise not using any of the "repair" features that comes with WinXP
 

I to couldn't boot winXP after installing FC2, whats worse is i didn't checksum the disc 1 iso before burning it and so my install crapped out on the first disk. tried to go back to xp and i just got

rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

thank god for knoppix, i was able to burn my important stuff to a cd before blowing away xp. I tried all the little commands it comes with; fixboot, bootcfg. Then i tried fixmbr, boy that was a mistake. It got rid of my bootloader problem but i ended up with this message instead

Error Loading Operating System

No amount of reformating(at least not the format the XP installation does) and reinstalling helped. Read up on doing a zero fill format but couldn't find any free programs that did it. Luckily my friend told me about a command in knoppix that performs this

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda <<<or hdb depending on your harddrive location

Just thought I'd share. Sorry it's late in the game.

Thx for your share.

My problem is not being able to boot Windows XP, but the problem is to have it done automatically by grub.

If I tell my BIOS to boot on the XP drives, it will load my XP correctly. But making grub do this from my Linux drive is the problem...


Regards,
Bambino

I'm the semi newbie so i apologize for the stupid question but is grub pointing to (hd1,0)?

Dont apologize, Im happy to questions and answers to solve my problem.

My grub file:

[root@localhost root]# cat /boot/grub/grub.conf
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2115.nptl)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi rhgb
initrd /initrd-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl.img
title Windows
#map (hd0) (hd1)
#map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader --force (hd1,0)+1
makeactive
[root@localhost root]#

I have tried different things to make it boot my windows XP as you can see. When I select Windows from the grub menu at startup, it simply shows my commands and hangs there. I have tried with the makeactive before the chainloader command, and also using the map commands.

Any suggestions?

Here is my /boot/grub/menu.lst :

I have two hard drives (hdb=80GB & hdd=180GB) with WinXP being 1st on my 1st hard drive and Fedora Core2 right after it and Gentoo occupying half of my 2nd hard drive. When I installed Fedora Core I put Grub on my MBR and use it for my multiboot.

rberry88

This tells me that your WinXP partition is just fine, it seems like its the MBR that is messed up. And you tried using the WinXP install disc and entering recovery mode and at the command prompt you type "fixboot" and/or "fixmbr"??

rberry88

this may sound really dumb but....

Why dont you reinstall fedora, basically, boot the disks, whipe out all the linux partitions using disk druid, and then, create new ones, (/boot /, /swap and /home if you like) then install LiLo. This way we can narrow it down, if Lilo causes the same problem we know its disk druid messing with partitions, if all goes well we know its grub.


EDIT**
After reading though the bugzilla report it seem to me that it has notthing to do with grub or Lilo. I found this very interesting.



" Additional Comment #49 From Bill Moss on 2004-05-20 22:18 -------

Some experiments I have run suggest that the FC2 dual boot problem is
generated by the fact that Windows2K/XP and FC2 with kernel 2.6 are
using different values for disk geometry. I have a dual booted Dell
C600 laptop with Windows2K and FC1. Partition Magic reports the disk
geometry under Windows as 2432/255/63 and FC1 (/proc/ide/hda/settings)
reports it as 2432/255/63. I booted FC2 disc1 into rescue/read only
mode. FC2 (/proc/ide/hda/settings) reports the disk geometry as
(38760/16/63). If you install FC2 so that new partitions are created
during the installation, then the FC2 geometry will be used and your
will no longer be able to boot to Windows. If you do an upgrade, then
no new partitions will be created and you should be OK. If partitions
have to be created, they would have to be created on the Windows side
so that when you install FC2 you have a Windows compatible partition
table. I cannot take a chance on trashing my work computer, so I have
not verified these statements. As far as I can tell from user
comments, everyone who installed FC2 without creating a new partitions
during the FC2 install were OK. You can argue if this is a bug or a
feature, but there is no doubt that is has made life a little more
difficult for first time dual booters who need to create partitions
for Linux. This takes dual booting out of the “easy install” category."


Now i am thinking that if we created the /boot /root and /swap (and /home if you like) partitions using another program like Knoppix, Mandrake moves's Disk Drake or window's partition magic. and then installed FC2 i think it may work. I do not have FC2 yet as i have 56k so if someone could try this and report back that would help us verify what the poster i quoted is saying.

Thats whay I was thinking about doing, removing grub and installing lilo. Things is, I've never done it before. Has anyone got a HOW-TO, or can write up a quick tutorial for it. Would be greatly appreciated :)

im sure there is some command but the easiest way i can think of is to reinstall Fedora and just install lilo.

anyone know the command? Also what do you think of my edit from my post above?

I found a solution

title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)

this will finally boot my Windows

mmmm Well, I don't have that problem, anyway here is my info:

---primary partition---
hda1 Fat32 WinXP
---extented partition---
hda5 Fat32 Personal Data
hda6 SWAP
hda7 ext3 /
hda8 ext3 /home

The Linux partitions were created with PartitionMagic 8.

OSes that were installed previously
a. Fedora Core 1 (Grub & Kernel 2.4)
b. Mandrake 10 Community (Lilo & Kernel 2.6.?)
c. Fedora Core 2 (Grub & Kernel 2.6.?) [now]

During the manual partition, the "SWAP" and "/" partitions were formatted.

Until now it is booting fine, and I hope it keep working.

Don't know if this help...

@nano,

I'm not sure what you are asking, your partition scheme looks fine and as long as its working you should be ok. If you are having some kind of problems, I must have missed it.

@Bambino

Good to hear that its working again. I had a feeling it was simply a Grub syntax error since you were able to boot the Win partition by itself.

rberry88

errr ok this bug happens even if the partitions are on different HDs.. i think :(

So guys can u confirm that this bug does NOT happen if i DONT install any bootloader so i leave the default boot as win2k AND i boot linux only with a boot floppy?
and maybe can u explain me how to have a boot like that ? :D I mean nothing on MBRs and same boot as win2k's but if i put the fc2 boot floppy it loads fc2..

I hope that this bug is related to the boot loader and not to the install process...i'd like to install this distro but i CANT really lose my win2k partition
tnx everybody :)

I think the bug is releated to how Anaconda handles partition creation, so as long as you dont create/modify any partitions you should be fine. If you need to create any try using Mandrake Move's "Disk Drake" it is very user friendly, or use partition magic you have it.

Well let me just say that this has caused HUGE problems in my little home in Australia.

Not only do I no lon ger have a Windows partition, any Linux at all, but a VERY ANNOYED family. I have wiped all my sons photos (18 months worth) yes yes I know didn't you back them. I'm in IT I never said I practice what I preach.

Anyway while I'm still in the sh*t I may as well continue fiddling until I get it going.

Question. I have installed WinXP on partition 1 of my 80GB. I have now installed FC1 with these specs hda5 is a 110mb /boot, hda6 7000mb for /, and hda7 1024mb for swap. I am now going to install FC2 onto the last part of the drive using hda8 for /boot again 110mb and hda9 for / again 7000mb, I will share hda7 for the swap.

Then if all goes well point Grub (from FC1 install) to the newly installed FC2.

What do you think?

Read through the lower portions of bug 115980, there's some suggestions on recovering the partition table and restoring access to the data. The partition is fine, its just that the partition table is FUBARed. (and, not easy to get back, but some reports are successful.)

Best of luck getting back to your data, sorry for the misfortune.

ok tnx i'll try this way :)

Yippee!!!!!! I changed the BIOS to LBA for HDD reformatted the entire drive, installed crappy XP then FC2 with that annoying BLOODY error, and all is now well in the world.

I'm sorry I can't be of any further help as I basically did what was suggested in the bugzilla link, change and prey I think it says.

I had the dual boot problem and fixed it with these instructions from the bugzilla site

After I did that everything worked as it should.

Could you explain that a little better? I read that on bugzilla and didnt really understand what that exactly did.

Yeah, sure

Open a terminal. Log in as root using the su command.
Now type in /sbin/sfdisk -d /dev/hda > temp.txt
This creates a file temp.txt that holds the info you want. You first need to edit it, though.
Using your favorite editor remove any commented lines (the ones that begin w/ a pound sign (#)).
Next issure the command cat temp.txt | /sbin/sfdisk --no-reread -H255 /dev/hda

You'll probably get errors that say you need to reboot before you can do it, but it worked for me even with the error.

Does this issue effect dual boot Linux machines? I have Redhat 9.0 on my first hard drive and Gentoo on the second and I wanted to upgrade to FC2 but now I'm a little nervous. RedHat currently maintains grub. Will I have any issues with this?

Also, I have dual boot on my laptop XP and RedHat 9.0. They are on one disk. Will I run into this bug on my laptop or is it just effecting installs with 2 seperate hard drives?

This won't affect your dual linux machine as far as I have read. It will effect your notebook. It happened to me and I have xp and FC on a single drive with a separate data drive (for occations like this). If you have something to loose by Windows XP disappearing then I would be cautious.... I didn't know about this bug until after I installed. While I was installing there was a warning before reading the partitioning data. If you install and see this then abort.

It is recoverable in some instances. Can't guarentee all instances. So like I said above.... If you have something to loose then beware.

not the repartitioning
 

I don't think it's just the repartitioning. I had the partitions already made and FC2 already installed, and everything was working fine for several days..... Then I finally decided to boot the new Fedora (had been using and booting XP just fine in the meantime) and only when I used GRUB and actually booted it did it destroy my windows.

So be careful, because I don't think it's the repartitioning and installation that's really the problem.

Following http://www.fedorazine.com/content/view/191/38/ , this is how far I got...

Since sfdisk -d /dev/hda does not produce any errors, I piped it in the one command.

I'm really not sure whats going on here, I did try and reboot, but I still get the same chainload error.

Sorry to *bump* this, but I still cannot fix this ;(

Have you tried variations of the command? Have you left out --force? Have you forced the output to a file and removed unneccessary lines? Have you changed the BIOS to LBA?

I tried leaving out the --force, and even though there is no errors in the output, I did also pipe the output to a file. Still no luck.

I have an ePox 8RDA+ mobo, as far as I can see in the options, I don't see any LBA option.

Kristijan

Ok, I have found the LBA option in my BIOS, but I'm still getting the same chainloader error. I have now tried both chaning my BIOS settings to LBA, and the fdisk option.

Still stuck :(

Any help is much appreciated.

Kristijan

You might want to try the recovery steps in LWN: Making Fedora Core 2 and Windows play well together.

Hope this helps.