Hi,

Previously on my Dell Dimension 4100, I had 2 OS
1) Windows ME
2) Fedora Core 3

Over Win_ME, I installed Windows XP (SP2) and now I am NOT able to boot into FC3...

If I boot thru' the FC3 bootable floppy, I get the message
"NTLDR missing"

So I tried booting thru' the RESCUE CD of FC3...
After I issued
$>chroot /mnt/sysimage

$>fdisk /dev/hda
returns that hda is not a block device or bad disk or something like that...

I still went ahead and issued:
$>grub-install --recheck /dev/hda
That command came back with the command prompt (no visible error).

But when I issued:
$>grub-install /dev/hda

I got the same message "hda -- bad block device or is not a block device"..something of that sort...

The machine boots up fine in Windows XP and I think it is doing it thru' Windows XP's boot loader (boot.ini)...but I NEITHER am able to install GRUB successfully NOR am able to boot into Fedora Core 3 again....

Any help will greatly be appreciated.

Thanks,
LnxKido.

hmmm - well the fresh winXP install definately demolished the GRUB bootloader in MBR. It seems to have demolished everything else too.

check that winXP is still in the old winME partition ... see what size it thinks the C: drive is, and compare with the disk size and the size of the old partition.

GRUB needs to be reinstalled to hda0

run fdisk with -l option

from the rescue CD you should be able to mount hda2 or whatever your old root partition was and make sure it's all still there.

According to:
http://www.compukiss.com/populartopi...m/review32.htm
your Dell Dimension 4100 has only 128M of RAM. I suspect that you are not going to be happy w/ the performance of XP on this hardware w/o upgrading the mem. If you must still have M$ Win, suggest you consider installing 2k or 98SE. Also, in the long run I'm not sure that XP won't crowd your stock 20g hd.

Before I go off in 5 directions at once, how about answers to:[list=1][*]How much RAM is currently installed?[*]How much RAM can you afford to add?[*]How big is the current hard disk or disks?[*]Can you afford another hard disk? How big?[/list=1]

I think the key here is to develop the best strategy for the hardware that will be available.

OK..


I already 384 MB of RAM installed and was happily running FC3 with Win_ME...But the OEM version of Win_ME started dying on me with all sorts of problems...Hence I upgraded my Win_ME to WIN XP...

I just have one HDD and it is abt 40 GB...
I had earlier partitioned it such that 25 GB will be used for Windows and rest 15 GB for LINUX...

Hence I don't see any reason abt the memory or HDD...but definitely the WinXP install has messed up my GRUB boot loader...


But if I get into RESCUE mode via RESCUE CD of FC3, I CAN_NOT even list my partitions...if I issue
cat /proc/partitions it tells me can not open /proc/partition..

As Simon has pointed out, I need to dig little deeper....

Anywa Thanks for U'r replies.

Really appreciate the help.

Regards,
LnxKido.

Thanks for bothering to answer my Q's, even though my concerns were misplaced. Either you have already upgraded your hardware or my source lied. In either case, you should have enough RAM & enough disk to do what you want.

Any chance your drive is not the Primary/Master, i.e. hda? -- sounds like that is not where your drive is being seen. If there is any chance of this, check the BIOS, & then the physical cabling. Were you able to: (Please post output.) If not, maybe a Knoppix live CD.

hmmm dell ... only one ide drive so it must be primary master - especially since it has been working before.

hda1 is normally a recovery partition
hda2 will be win (hope)
hda3 & 4 are the remaining primary partitions, so anaconda would normally make hda3 into an extended patrition across the remaining diskspace, then create root, boot and swap as hda5,6,7. (note hda4 vanishes)

definately need output of fdisk -l (man fdisk for details) to check this - will also tell you if the winxp install has wiped all your partitions.