Dual Boot (XP Pro/Fedora 10) boot issue

Ironman00 · 12-17-2008, 03:37 PM

I receive the following error:

Quote:

An error occurred trying to mount some or all of your system. Some of it may be mounted under /mnt/sysimage.

I can load XP Pro fine, but I have yet to be able to configure to dual boot Fedora 10. I have been attempting to use the Rescue operation, which is where I am getting this error.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you would not mind explaining the process in which we go about attempting to solve this, I would greatly appreciate it. I hope that this will be a good learning experience. Thanks in advance.

Back Story/Information

Hello. I will start of by saying that I am fairly new to Linux (My only real experience was in a basic Sys Admin course before I changed my major, and I have forgotten a lot due to lack of use.). I decided to attempt to dual boot Windows XP Pro and Fedora 10.

I originally set aside two partitions and installed XP pro before I installed Fedora (partitioning a total of 31471MB to set up the file system on). I used the disk partitioning utility which came with the distribution (Disk Druid I believe), and I partitioned my Linux file system as follows:

Code:

/dev/sda5    /boot        ext3    not encrypted    203MB   
/dev/sda6    /home        ext3    encrypted        10142MB
/dev/sda7    /usr         ext3    encrypted        7169MB
/dev/sda8    /opt         ext3    encrypted        5004MB
/dev/sda9    /var         ext3    encrypted        4094MB
/dev/sda10                Swap    encrypted        2047MB
/dev/sda11   /usr/local   ext3    encrypted        1027MB
/dev/sda12   /tmp         ext3    encrypted        1027MB
/dev/sda13   /            ext3    encrypted        502MB
/dev/sda14   /var/log     ext3    encrypted        250MB
Free                      Free                     7MB

It probably is not the best thought out structure, and I probably wasted space. Eventually, I will learn.

I set the root password, and I set a password for the boot loader. I recall installing Grub to the first sector of my Fedora partition (so on /dev/sda5, right?).

After I choose and install the distributions, I restart. I have yet to set it up to boot correctly, and my Linux partitions are not detected.

Although I am not sure if it makes any impact on this thread (as it probably can be searched or should be asked seperately), I would like to try and have GRUB also boot windows, if possible.

ArfaSmif · 12-17-2008, 05:37 PM

If you are mostly a "beginner" in Linux I would suggest that the easiest way for you to go is to start again and reinstall Fedora and take mostly all defaults (especially the partitioning). Make you you use up all disk space (if you want to) that is NOT windows disk space to install Fedora. When it comes to installing grub it should go in the MBR (most likely /dev/sda1). Grub will then be setup with two options for you to select at boot time - one for Windows and one for Fedora. You can make Fedora the default or Windows the default if you wish during the Fedora install process.

Looking at your current partitioning setup , whilst not incorrect is probably not necessary and perhaps a bit too complex. Fedora will set up an LV (a logical volume) for you which will simplify the partitioning process. Once you have played with Fedora for a while you may decide to reinstall and set up your own partitioning set ups later on.

Are you using a "live" fedora CD/DVD ? or an install only version of Fedora. I'm not sure how the live CD works, but I am guessing that you can install from this as well, and the process is probably similar. With an "Install" version of Fedora, just boot from the CD/DVD and follow the instructions from there.