Hi

Help...I've got some problem with Dual Booting of RH 8.0 and Win XP using GRUB, system just boots up at the GRUB _ and sits there doing nothing. I can boot up using a floppy boot disk created. I suspect that theres something to do witht the mbr and GRUB as the system used to be able to dual boot RH 7.3 with Win XP using the GRUB Boot loader. I've got this prob after I installed RH8 over RH7. Is there any way to fix the mbr other than doing a fdisk /mbr if I dont have any winXP rescue disk or boot floppy?
If the /mbr is cleaned up how do I reconfigure the grub in linux again? Configure grub.conf manually?

Thanks in advance.

posting the output of fdisk -l and the contents of /boot/grub/grub.conf should help. ..

did you update the boot loader when you upgraded to 8.0?

My setup is as follows

Win XP resides in /dev/hda1 HPFS/NTFS bootable
RH 8.0 resides in /dev/sda1 EXT3 bootable also

grub.conf

default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd2,0) /grub /splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat 8.0 Linux(2.4.18-14)
root (hd2,0)
kernel /vmlinux-2.4.18-14 ro root = label = /
initrd /initrd-2.4.18-14.img
title WinXP
rootnoverify(hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Could it be that the old boot loader is still residing in the boot sector of my WinXP drive? how do I update the boot loader?
any help or suggestions appreciated.

Thanks

I just went through this; the problem is that the NT Loader used by XP and LILO/GRUB are not compatible. I used PartitionMagic/ BootMagic (commercial package -- a bit pricey at $60 for software you only use once, but it does work) to set this up:
1) Install XP first
2) Use BootMagic to set up a dual-boot with one pointing at the XP partition and the second once pointing at your RH /boot partition.
3) When you install RH 8.0 there is an "advanced" option under the boot-loader section that allows you to put GRUB into the /boot partition rather than the disk's boot sector. Choose this option.
BootMagic then handles everything properly.

Now if I could just get my ()*&#(%*&@ wireless connection to work!

Okay, I got back the WinXP partition ... next thing is .... how do I reinstall the grub boot loader into the WinXP harddisk MBR without reinstalling my RH8 ?

Any help or suggestion welcome

Okay Linux dudes,

After fiddling, I've have made some progress about my Dual boot problem with RH 8 & winXP. I re-installed grub to my /dev/hda partition - it passes the initial Grub problem ... but now when it comes to grub stage 1.5 it gives me a error 21. I've check out error 21 is actually selected disk does not exist.. but this really puzzles me cos the available drives are :

/dev/hda - ntfs win XP
/dev/hdb - ext3 RH7.3 but not mounted, meaning that when I type mount in RH8.0 (booted from floppy) it does not show
/dev/sda - ext3 RH8.0

the grub device.map will be
/dev/hda (hd0,0)
/dev/hdb (hd1,0)
/dev/sda (hd2,0)

Does anybody has any ideas wats wrong?
Appreciate any suggestions or help.

Thanks



my grub.conf is as follows

default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd2,0) /grub /splash.xpm.gz

title Red Hat 8.0 Linux(2.4.18-14)
root (hd2,0)
kernel /vmlinux-2.4.18-14 ro root = label = /
initrd /initrd-2.4.18-14.img

title WinXP
rootnoverify(hd0,0)
chainloader +1