GRUB wont load XP. No error.
 

Hi,

I stupidly installed Fedora 9 which has wrecked my partition tables.

Now i get a GRUB menu with my XP partition listed on it. When i click Other, it goes to blank screen¨but nothing happens. No error messages. Nothing.

I get hard drive activity indicator going off like its searching for something. I left it running for an hour but nothing.

If i log into Fedora 9, i can see my 2 ntfs partitions. They still exist.

From what Ive been forced to waste my time reading about on the web its seems something called a partition boot sector may have been overwritten.

How do i fix that from Fedora 9?? All the tools on the web are windows based which is useless to me. Fedora wont let me mount an external drive nor burn anything to a CD.

What commands exist within Fedora to fix the problem it has created??

Any assistance to help me get the hell out this environment would be much appreciated.

Andy

Go into Fedora and open terminal. You will need root privileges then type 'fdisk -l' without the quotes and post the results. This will let us see your partition table. To do this in a minimal number of steps we also need to see a copy of your /boot/grub/menu.lst

fedora9victim take a deep breath and don't do anything yet. A bolloxed partition table doesn't mean you'll lose data until you start using your filesystems. Give us the info Larry asked for and 99.9% chance you'll be ok with both your systems booting and running ok afterwards.

Which they wouldn't if the partition table had been "wrecked" - perhaps you should temper your vitriol.Time spent learning shouldn't ever be considered wasted. In the unlikely event this is actually the problem, you will need your Windows install CD to fix that.What did you try, and what were the results. Might be a permission/authority problem.

I expect you simply do not have an entry in your grub.conf file for windows and you will need to do it manually so just post the "fdisk -l" and "grub.conf" output. Fedora usually needs to be edited manually.

Hi

================================================================
FDISK Output
================================================================

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x25f35050

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 26 208813+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 * 609 5559 39768907+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 5560 7295 13944420 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 5560 6227 5365678+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 6253 6507 2048256 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda7 6508 7295 6329578+ 8e Linux LVM

Disk /dev/dm-0: 4362 MB, 4362076160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 530 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-1: 2080 MB, 2080374784 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 252 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x30307800

Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

=======================================================
GRUB.CONF OUTPUT
=======================================================

#boot=/dev/sda1
default=1
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.25-14.fc9.i686)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686 ro root=UUID=9de65c86-9483-489a-9952-c6cefcd5adb7 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
title WinXP
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

Thanks

Hi,

I should also add that I used to have to type:

rootnoverify (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

all the time when booting - prior to installing Fedora 9... which is why I installed Fedora 9. This was because Fedora 8 wouldn't install after 4 different downloads and countless install attempts.... but it did kill the FC7 install that was on it there before leaving only a GRUB loader.

So anyway ive tried putting in this sequence into grub.conf as well but that doesn't work either. I can see the NTDetect, ntldr and boot.ini still exist on the main ntfs partition but my belief (and hope) is that its not even getting that far.

From what ive read chainloader loads/hands off to ntldr. So it looks like the "pointer/address/whatever" that chainloader uses is a bust. As i understand that pointer would come either from the MBR or a PBS.

Thanks

In your first post you stated that when you click on "Other" (which is your xp partition) you get a black screen. In a later post, you have a grub.conf entry "title WinXP" so I assume you made this change between posts? Also, in your grub.conf you have the line "hiddenmenu" with no hash mark (#) in front of it which means it boots default automatically and does not show a menu?

I assume the vmlinuz and initrd files listed in your grub.conf are in the /boot directory?

Last, I'm curious about what this line means: but it did kill the FC7 install that was on it there before leaving only a GRUB loader.

I assume when you installed Fedora9 you installed Grub to mbr?

Make your windows entry look something like this

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
hide (hd0,0)
unhide (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Yes. I reinstalled in fact.

It has a 5 sec countdown. It get the menu i press <Enter> then i can select XP using arrow keys.

Yes. Im not a computer guy though so i dunno what they really mean. From reading it says something about a path to a kernal.... so my guess is that one of them is similar to ntldr and the other possibly the FC9 OS core. Either way they are present and accounted for (hope thats a good thing).

When i was trying to install FC8 it kept failing and I was left with a command line only; just like when u press "C" to get the GRUB command line on boot.

After searching about the net I found out that this was in fact the GRUB command line and that to load XP i needed to type in the aforementioned commands. But if i tried root (hd0,0) etc i couldn't get FC7 to load. I also read alot of people were calling FC8 a dog and install problems were rife.

So i just left it as was; just happy i could access my XP and get some work done. Then with FC9 release i figured Id install it so i didn't have to keep typing in the boot commands. Now Ive got a Fedora install that at least boots but now I cant access XP - which is very bad.

As for what i installed re: GRUB im assuming it was upgraded? If i do a
rpm -q grub

I get:

grub-0.97-33.fc9.i386

I did initially because it was the default setting but I couldn't boot XP as above. So i reinstalled FC9; this time opting to put GRUB into the /boot partition.

That made no difference. I assume because GRUB was installed to the MBR in the first install. So even though i installed to /boot second time round it didn't remove original install from MBR.

Where i installed GRUB in the original FC7 install i cant remember.


Thanks

Close - chainloading is literally just a transfer of control. It is the function of the (Windows) PBS to locate ntldr.
Let's see what's in that boot sector - run this from a (root) terminal, and post the output. Doesn't do any update, just a display

Hi

O.k i did that (without writing down what u had told me do) and it just removed the boot menu. Then i couldn't get back in till now. Had to go round to a friends place and print off the root- kernal path command to load fedora back up.... no way i could remeber that string off the top of my head. ;0

It did allow me type my old rootnoverify to load XP but the problem persisted. It gave no error. Just a blank screen and a hd activity indicator that runs forever.... So at this point ive just rolled back what it (windows entry) was before.

Thanks

So you are able to boot xp manually now, the way you used to? I'm pretty much out of ideas. Some of the previous suggestions should have worked. I though from one of your earlier posts you had the old Grub from Fedora 8 still in the mbr as you had indicated you installed Fedora9 grub to /boot directory but your latest post indicates you first installed Fedora 9 to mbr?

The vmlinuz file is the Linux kernel.

No. Im still in the same state as when i started. I cant even use the WinXp disk to run Recovery. When it starts it says " Setup is checking your current configuration", then i get a blank screen, no errors and the disk just keeps spinning.

I think its pretty clear at this stage that Fedora 9 has shat all over my ntfs primary boot sector. The fact that i can access the partition from fedora says the partition as a container is not shot. Ive used FDISK to look at the partitions. NTFS is there and set as active partition. The problem is any form of booting off that partition.

How do i fix the PBS of the ntfs partition?? Given i cant use the WinXp CD, i cant use fixboot..... which appears to be the way to go.

Can i somehow copy the PBS of another computers XP partition and write that over the current PBS on my own?? What tools exist in the linux world to do that??

In fact, what command can i use to display the PBS of the XP partition? If i can get a look at that and then use a windows utility to display the PBS of a working XP partition then i could compare them to see if they are different.... asumming all XP PBS look the same?

I think its either the pointer to the xp pbs thats the problem or the pointer from the xp pbs to its next stage. Given FC9 should have never been anywhere near the XP PBS perhaps the former is more likely??

Thanks

Hi

As below:

[root@localhost ~]# dd if=/dev/sda2 count=1 | hexdump -C | head
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.0906033 s, 5.7 kB/s
00000000 eb 52 90 4e 54 46 53 20 20 20 20 00 02 08 00 00 |.R.NTFS .....|
00000010 00 00 00 00 00 f8 00 00 3f 00 ff 00 60 0a 95 00 |........?...`...|
00000020 00 00 00 00 80 00 80 00 96 a6 bd 04 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000030 00 00 0c 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000040 f6 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 f0 8e a5 54 a2 a5 54 4c |...........T..TL|
00000050 00 00 00 00 fa 33 c0 8e d0 bc 00 7c fb b8 c0 07 |.....3.....|....|
00000060 8e d8 e8 16 00 b8 00 0d 8e c0 33 db c6 06 0e 00 |..........3.....|
00000070 10 e8 53 00 68 00 0d 68 6a 02 cb 8a 16 24 00 b4 |..S.h..hj....$..|
00000080 08 cd 13 73 05 b9 ff ff 8a f1 66 0f b6 c6 40 66 |...s......f...@f|
00000090 0f b6 d1 80 e2 3f f7 e2 86 cd c0 ed 06 41 66 0f |.....?.......Af.|


Does the above answer my question "what command can i use to display the PBS of the XP partition?"?? If so i hope u can interpret gobble de gook ;)

This URL http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/NTFSBR.htm under the subheading "The NTFS Bios Parameter Block" would suggest that the PBS has been corrupted by the FC9 install. Looking at line 0040; the values that that site say should always be the same (red) are in fact different.