[Solved]Trying to Dual boot Win XP & FC4. Grub doesnt come up at all.
 

Hi,

I would'nt call myself a complete newbie but this is my first time with FC4.

I just burnt the FC4 CD ISOs and installed it.

I have 2 hard drives.

hda - 80GB HDD with Win 98(primary partition) and Win XP(extended partition)

hdb - 160GB HDD installed Linux on a 20GB partition

I installed the GRUB bootloader on /dev/hda.
After completing the linux installation, it asked me to reboot.

Upon rebooting, GRUB didnt load and I did not get an option of choosing between Linux and Windows. Instead it went straight to Windows and asked me to choose between WinXP and 98.

Now whenever I start my computer it takes me straight to Windows almost like I never installed FC4.

here's my question

1.Is there anyway I can boot into FC4?

2. If I reinstall, where should I install GRUB?
Are there any other precautions i need to take?


I did refer to the guides on Overclockers club, but didnt find answers there.

Thanks in advance for your help :) .

Boot into FC4 rescue mode, search for/mount the FC4 installation and do a native grub installation.

1) Boot using the 1st installation CD and enter “linux rescue” at the first prompt (boot: linux rescue).

2) Answer the questions and execute “chroot /mnt/sysimage” after the search for linux installations is done.

3) Start the grub shell from the command prompt:

grub

4) At the grub prompt (grub>), run the commands find, root, setup and exit as are described in the Grub Manual ( http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...-GRUB-natively ):

grub> find /grub/stage1
- - OR - -
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

(Use the 1st find if you made a separate /boot partition and use the 2nd find if /boot is in the “/” partition.)

grub> root (hd1,...)

(Where (hd1,...) is what “find” found (probably (hd1,0) or (hd1,1)).
It might look like this: “grub> root (hd1,1) .)

grub> setup (hd0)

grub> quit

exit


If you have trouble with FC4 rescue mode, you can also install grub natively using a Live-CD like Knoppix.

The grub manual also includes a section about making a grub boot floppy, which can be a real lifesaver. For those without floppy drives, you can also make a grub boot USB flash drive using almost the same commands.

Works like a dream. Thank you :) for your clear instructions Whatshisname

And now that you know how to do it, grub will never bother you again.

The native grub installation method is a little more involved than using grub-install, but it almost always works in cases where grub-install failed and its output gives good diagnostic information when you’re having trouble configuring grub. Sometimes, the disk isn’t partitioned the way you thought it was.

Don’t forget to make the grub boot floppy for future use: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...UB-boot-floppy