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Not booting into windows!!

problem
I had dual boot (FC3 and Win XP) and the windows doesnt boot up.

Error Message
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
chainloader +1

fdisk configuration
Disk /dev/hda: 10.0 GB, 10005037056 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1216 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 510 4096543+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda2 * 511 1216 5670945 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda5 1 510 4096512 b W95 FAT32

Disk /dev/hdb: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/hdb2 14 1288 10241437+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb3 1289 1364 610470 82 Linux swap
/dev/hdb4 1365 2630 10169145 5 Extended
/dev/hdb5 1365 2630 10169113+ 83 Linux
grub.conf
title Fedora Core (2.6.9-1.667)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img
title Windows XP Proff
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
chainloader +1
I think the grub.conf file is correct. This worked perfectly as it shows in the grub. The error started to occur when i formatted one of the partitons (/dev/hda5 )using windows disk manager.Could someone suggest me a solution please?
I would appriciate for your help and time.
Kind regards Azzath

Partition (hd0,2) is not showing up on your fdisk -- it should be there as /dev/hda3. What is the output of

Code:

fsdisk -l /dev/hda

Cheers,

mj

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 10.0 GB, 10005037056 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1216 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 510 4096543+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda2 * 511 1216 5670945 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda5 1 510 4096512 b W95 FAT32

cheers mj.

I think you've buggered hda :)

Hda1 and hda5 overlap (matching start sectors, slightly different end sectors), and no mention of hda3 at all. If you had important data on hda1 through to hda5, then you could try and recover it, but otherwise IMHO you'll probably have to repartition /dev/hda using cfdisk (under linux).

Windows probably didn't recognise the ext partition on /dev/hda, and just wrote over it (along with hda3, which is rather odd) when formatting hda5. The last thing you could try is to boot /dev/hda5 (using (hd0,4) in your Grub menu.lst) and see what happens. Your old XP data may possibly still be there.

Good luck !

Cheers,

mj

Hello mj thanks mate, but i could only access the docs i had in my windows partition but i couldn't make it boot up. I think i will re install my windows and i need to organize the partitions methodically and i'm not really good @ it. I am still trying to have 3 linux distributions and i can make it all to boot up.
Have you done something like this before? I mean have 3 distributions to boot up in 1 HD ?
Cheers for all your help.
Regards Azzath.

Yes, I currently have two hard drives - one SATA for windows (hardly used) and one IDE for linux (SuSE, two installations of Debian, FreeBSD and Redhat - latter two hardly used also). The perils of cheap storage these days :)

It's no problem to manage, but I do recommend...

Keeping windows and Linux on separate drives, if possible.
Put the bootloader (particularly if using Lilo) on whichever partition/distribution that you use the most. Don't use the windows boot loader unless you're absolutely desperate.
Install windows first, and if you're using two hard drives, unplug your Linux one before beginning the install. Then when finished, set your one Grub.conf/menu.lst/lilo.conf to handle the boot menu for the whole system.

Cheers,

mj