Hi.
I started new thread, because the old one was getting clautered up. Plus I think this is a more appropriate forum for it.
Old thread can be found here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...09#post1103609
Anyway to recap.
I have windows XP Pro, and 2 hard drives. One hd is 20 gig and contains primary Windows partition, plus extended partitions. Second slave hd is 80 gig, and has extended windows partitions on first 60 gig. I'm trying to install FC2 one last 20 gigs.
The Problem.
I read this article that says there is a problem with dual booting XP and FC2. Used to have dual boot with 98se but switched to XP last week.
So I followed the instructions and run the install with appropriate CHS for hda and hdb. During the installation I got this error message saying that partitions couldn't be propery shifted, or something like that. I clicked ignore and continued with installation. Created few partitions including /boot. After I finished the installation, and restarted the computer. Grub menu came up and I booted in to Windows. There I discovered that my k partition (last windows partition on second HD), is messed up. It's slightly less in size, and whever I try to open it, it prompts for restart. When I looked at partitions in XP I saw that it didn't even have any file system on it. After I reformated it to ntfs it worked fine.
I restarted the computer again to see if FC2 would boot. Instead of grub menu I was presented just with grub prompt. So I guess me reformatting k partition messed up bootloader somehow. I tried to implement maghorp sudgestion in this article http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...grub+dual+boot , but it couldn't find grub.
I also tried doing this: sfdisk -d /dev/hda | sfdisk --no-reread -H255 /dev/hda
It gave me an error message: sfdisk: unrecognized intput: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary

Last thing I did was boot up with XP and use fixmbr (might have been a mistake). Now windows "works", but it reports that not only I have my properly working ntfs partitions, I also have 800+ GB of unknown partitions, plus another few GB of free space on my second HD....
Thankfully my 20 gig HD with the operating sytem and all my programs isn't effected.

Since my second HD only contains some files that I can easily back up. I"m thinking of booting with start up disk, and using fdisk to delete all the partitions on that drive. So I can start over. Will this fix the problem I'm having now with windows reporting wrong partitions?

Second question. What went wrong? I followed the instructions, and got the correct values.

Thank You.

Are yousure that 'k' was really a windows partition? Did you have it before you strated making the changes?

I had a problem that - although differentin origin - gave the same result as you appear to have. SO when I did another dual boot install (WinXP + FC1) I decided to install grub to the /boot partition and let windows take me there. (there's arecent thread on this about a Red Hat + XP dual boot)

My advice is you boot from a rescue cd and reinstall grub (wherever you please, but I'd go for /boot). Check you still have the /boot partition. If not youmay need to do a repair install oreven a completely new install.

Yes partition k did exist, thats where I downloaded iso's of FC2. Also I tried booting linux from rescue disk and it couldn't find anything. So I think thats gone.
I'm trying to figure out what went wrong because, when I do reinstall FC2 I don't want the same thing happenning, and how to fix my current partition table of my second HD. During install I didn't see the option of installing on /boot. It just said it would install on /dev/hda, and gave an option of using a different bootloader. Besides I'm installing linux on to second slave hd, so /boot will be on hdb, but windows will be looking for boot up info on hda (primary hd). Or am I wrong?

hija!

i am running win XP and *NIX'es with a simple method, but only with two or more disks this will be usable.
Physically disconnect all the drives you are not intalling to.
One Disk is the XP 'bootdisk'. Take your G's for C:,D:, etc.
Disconnect and change to the other disk.
I install all my *nixes without any problems (concerning the installation procedure, bootmanager etc.
After plugging you still can resize or change partitions as usual.
Then plug all the (2) drives back onto the bus, set the bios up for cd-boot and use your favourite boot-loader CD.
I did it like that:
all drives plugged -> insert mandrake install cd (i use lilo) and then didn't choose the install feature, i used the rescue-boot to reinstall lilo (if you don't plug the XP-HDD as physically first master, i guess you could be avoiding the reinstallation of your bootloader)
After putting all the disks together XP shows only partitions that are fat,vfat,ntfs, or with other tools you could read or *maybe* even write ext2/3 as i have read but never tried.
I like this mothod, its quite easy and simple and i had mostly successes with this method, i often had problems you describe.
The Clue is that only partitions that are set to
b W95 FAT32 7 HPFS/NTFS (linux fdisk partition types)
(and maybe some others as well) are seen by XP, thus setting a partition type to lets say 83 (linux native) makes it impossible for XP to show it in the explorer i.e. You will see it in the XP-partition manager as unknown or something, but it remains completely untouched by explorer or any other applications. So you get a nice multi-os system.

have fun, janK

umney,
i read your 1st post and i have to say one true solution could be to start fresh. I think you would have better luck. you need to save all of your files first, you could image your 20 gig if you have an extra hdd sittin around or back them up on disks, etc. format the 20gig and repeat on 80gig. (back up files and format). install xp pro on the 80gig with the primary and extended partition so that OS and all extended parts are on one disk instead of having stuff scattered across 2 disks. with the 20gig for FC2 create a root part (as a primary), a swap (as a primary) and with the left over create another primary. set you boot sequence in BIOS accordingly and if it were me, id keep the 20 gig your master drive, good luck

It's true that FC installation only gives an option for installing to MBR ... or so it seems, because if you tick advanced options" and then go to "next" it will ask you whether you'd like grub to be installed to MBR or to /boot

Thank your for your sudgestion sammy. Unfortenatly at this time I don't have the energy or the time to do a clean install of Windows and Linux.

Also, working of the sudgestion posted here. Will this work?
Unplug 80 gig HD, do fdisk /mbr on 20 gig HD, to remove all the traces of 80 gig.
Connect 80 gig, unplug 20 gig. Do fdisk /mbr on it. Remove all the partitions on it.
Install FC2 on first 20 gig's, with grub intalled on /boot partition.
Plug in 20 gig hd, it's still primary HD, in XP create oditinal extended windows partitions after linux partitions.
Reinstall grub on /boot if it doesn't display boot up options, after 20 gig is connected.

Also I still don't understand what installing grub on /boot do. I thought it needs to be on hda (mbr partition), because that's where bios looks for info on what to boot up. Guess what I'm asking when my system boots how will it know to look for grub in /boot, if windows bootloader is already in mbr partition. Won't it just go straight to booting windows?

Thx.

O.K. I managed to fix partition table on my second hd (all the partitions were lost).
On first 20 gig of it I installed Linux, on the rest 60 gig I installed ntfs partition.
So If I look at the partitions through windows, on my second hd. I see 3 Primary health unknown partitions, then extended unknown partitions. And last healthy ntfs partitions.

I installed grub on /dev/hdb1, instructions , but when I restarted my computer it still booted straight in to windows. Did I mess up something?

BTW, unless I messed up somewhere hdb1 should be my /boot partition.
Edit: OK when I installed FC2. I set my second hd (80 gig )as primary and disconnected my 20 gig HD. When it asked to intstall a boot loader, I selected "do not use bootloader". So that I can install it after I reconnect my 20 gig hd as primary, and set the this one as slave.

Nah, that's OK. After you install the bootloader on /boot you can tell another bootloader to go there and boot your Linux from there. Windows XP allows you to dothis in the following way:

1) enter your linux and (with grub installed to /boot !!) issuethe following command:

dd if=(boot location) of=(file) bs=512 count=1

forexample:

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/home/username/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

2) Copy the resulting file to your windows C:\ directory

3) Edit the file C:\boot.ini to include the following line at the end of the file:
c:\(file)="(Name in the boot menu)", e.g: c:\linux.bin="Linux"

(boot.ini is a hidden system file and probably write only so you'll have to make it visible and change the properties under windows.)

The next time you start your PC windows will show you a menu in which you can choose between XP and Linux. If you choose linux it will take you Grub.

hija!

I have always installed the bootloader to i.e. /dev/hda or /dev/sda in my case. I have used /dev/sdb5 for testing-linux installation, so what was said is correct. You could install linux 5 times and you could use 5 lilo's that are booting in a row. Or u use just one on the first disk in mbr. Makes things more simple.
So when u have installed and want to change some partitions, think of the partition types that are shown / ignored by XP or you wont see it or you will destroy it with XP.
The plugin-plugout method works extremly fine for me, i have installd FreeBSD, linux and XP without any problems. Never 'tell' (or let it know during install) XP that you want to use different OS'ses than windows, it cant stand beeing not the only god

have fun, janK

ok I dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=/mnt/floppy/linux.bin bs=512 count=1
When I do cat of the file, it gives me some wiered letters, and last line is this:
*GRUB GEomHard DiskRead Error
What's going on my geomtry is messed up again? If it is how did that happen.
EDIT: Tried booting in to linux, and it just brought me to black window with A word GRUB in upper left corner. Can't even enter any commands.
Also I can't even find grub.conf in /boot/grub
Did I installed that incorrectly?
I used /sbin/grub-insall /dev/hdb1 command (hdb1 is my /boot partition).
I also tried adding an grub.conf file to /boot/grub
grub.conf
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.6.6-1.435.2.3)
root (hd1,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.6-1.435.2.3 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.6-1.435.2.3.img


What am I doing wrong?!?

If you can afford a full rebuild here is what i'd suggest I can give you a 90% grade A guarantee this sequence will work if you follow it I used this with on e drive I'm sure you can use it with two.
You are going to need to throw your boot partition and one other small partition of any size on the XP drive I throw my swap drive there though you could use part of the space you will use for the boot partition here's my sequence.

step 1
unpartition both hard drives and start over. Use disk druid in the FC2 install to partition your XP hard drive hda so that the first partition (forced to be primary) is your boot partition 100mb what ever file system other than vfat you want. Add a tiny partition after that (you can make it swap or just make it 2mb) just so it's separating your windows partition from your linux boot sector(also not vfat). Partition the other drive the way you want for your root directory and any other varied partitions (I always keep my personal files on a separate fat 32 partition if you want you can do that with part of your xp or second hard drive)

step 2
install fedora core 2 with gui as minimal as you feel comfortable so you can be sure it's booted safely places the root partition on your xp hard drive hda. Also make sure you put the / directory on the other drive.

Step 3 (pay careful attention)
boot from Windows XP Install disk when asked about partitions configure it manually. DELETE PARTION 1 YOUR /BOOT PARTITION (yes you heard me right) next install windows into the blank partition that should be the last partition or free space or so on hda (the master hard disk) Choose either to format full with Fat32 or NTFS. It's your call.
Complete the basic install don't worry about programs or network yet.
Once it's done and you've booted successfully into windows from being powered down, go to the next step.

Step 4 ( don't be mad)
Now that windows is handling the boot you need to retake control Windows installed the boot loader in the master boot record though the OS is on partition 3(hda3). (The second partition allowed you to fool windows into thinking it was limited to that space instead of taking up all the free room so now to make Windows a slave to grub)
Reinstall FC2 this time remove the second partition if you wish and make the segment up to your windows partition your /boot partition.
Reinstall as you wish this time including all programs and features. Set the / partition to be reformatted and modified in installation. When it shows you the second option for booting in the grub conf screen rename the unknown one Windows XP.

That worked for me Wish you luck
Ryan_moure

Unfortenatly reinstalling XP just isn't an option. New semester starts in a week, and when that happens I'll be stuck in computer lab. I really don't want to add to that configuring XP again, and linux.

O.K. Finally got it working. I ended up creatting /boot partition on hda, installing grub on to it. Then modifying boot.ini to boot to grub or windows. Kinda round about way of doing this, but at least this works. So I'm happy.
Thank You everyone for your help.

Congrats for making it work! I also started by trying to get consistent partition tables to get XP to boot,
but failed miserably. I am a bit paranoid of loosing my linux but I do not care about the XP partition data, so here
is my question: Is it possible to reinstall XP without sending linux to hell ?

cheers, Tanguero