dualboot XP and Core 3

brius · 01-10-2005, 10:14 AM

Ok, here's my problem, I just got 2 new Seagate Barracuda 120gb SATA drives, and i cant get fedora core 3 to dualboot with windows. Fedora is on a separate Maxtor 40gb IDE drive, and windows is running with my 2 SATA drives, running raid 0. My specs are as follows.
-Athlon XP 3000+
-ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe
-512 Kingston Dual Channel HyperX
-128mb eVGA geForce FX5700 Ultra w/ DDR2
-2 Seagate Barracuda 120gb SATA II w/ NCQ drives, on the SI3112

-40gb maxtor IDE (7200 rpm)
-LG 52x24x52x16 CD-RW/DVD Drive
-ASUS QuieTrack 52x cdrom
-Kingwin AWC-1 water cooler with a TT Volcano 12 on the second radiator
I don't get any errors when trying to do it, i just wondered if there was some special way i needed to do it, cuz i haven't tried it yet. I know that there were some problems with core 2 screwing up my partitions, though i fixed that, but i've never tried to install a distro dualbooting with a raid 0 system.
Thanx
--Brius

Digital Surgeon · 01-10-2005, 11:09 AM

Hi,
I have been fooling around trying to get windows 2000 Pro to dual boot with fedora core 3. Win xp and 2k are both similiar. Now I did an experiment and came pretty close. Try loading windows first, imagining it already is. Load Fc3 where you want it. And on the install it will ask you under the grub boot loader settings about the other OS /dev/something. As far as I know that should work depending on your BIOS, if it goes past cylinder 1024. If not then both fedora and xp need to be before cylinder 1024. Hopefully this will lead you on the right track. As far as I see this is raid independent, just bring ambiguity out of grub so it knows which windows xp copy to load.

Petra9 · 01-10-2005, 03:47 PM

Try this, it worked for me: (I got it from fedora forum, but it's been saved on my comp for some time, so I don't remember link)

"You probably installed GRUB on the MBR (Master Boot Record).
It's better to install GRUP on the linux partition (/boot), and use de Windows boot manager.

Follow these steps to make it work:
- During fedora installation, install GRUB on the linux partition (you have to check something like 'Additional bootloader settings...' during installation, and the next page will allow you to choose the grup partition).
- After installation boot using the fedora rescue mode (type 'linux rescue' followed bij ENTER on the boot prompt of the fedora installation CD/DVD.
- If you have no floppy drive (my laptop has none) or available FAT/FAT32 partition it might be handy to use an USB Memory stick. Make sure it is plugged in while booting fedora rescue mode.
- In de rescue installatie menu appears choose the options to go to the command line (choose skip and something else?!?)
- first mount any FAT/FAT32 partitions or USB memory stick (i.e. with mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbflash)
- On the shell prompt type te following:
dd if=<linux partition device (where you installed GRUB)> of=<mount location>/linux.bin bs=512 count=1
For example: dd if=/dev/hda5 of=/mnt/usbflash/linux.bin bs=512 count=1
- Now boot Windows 2000 (see a fix for your 'error 12' below)
- Run 'cmd'
- type: attrib -R -S -H C:\boot.ini
- type: notepad C:\boot.ini
- Append the following line:
c:\linux.bin="Linux"
- Save the file boot.ini and close notepad
- type (on cmd): attrib +R +S +H C:\boot.ini
- Now copy the earlier copied file 'linux.bin' to C:\

Now you can boot linux from the Windows 2000 boot menu.

Although I read somewhere (see http://www.geocities.com/epark/linu...-w2k-HOWTO.html) that the boot partition should be below <8.5 GB. I placed linux (using the Windows 2000 boot menu) and the end of a 30GB harddisk drive without a /boot partition."

brius · 01-18-2005, 09:12 AM

i tried the step by step instructions that you gave me, but i ran into 2 problems.
1. When i'm in rescue mode, it won't mount any of my drives, except my hard drive.
2. When i run the command dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=/mnt/usbflash/linux.bin bs=512 count=1, it tells me that the directory does not exist. when i run it like this, dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=/mnt/fd0/linux.bin bs=512 count=1, it tells me that "linux.bin is not a valid directory".
I downloaded vmware's virtual machine software, and tried to make a setup that is as close to mine as possible, so now i have full access to the /boot directory, but will this help me. i tried about every file in that directory, renaming it as linux.bin, but as i though, it didn't work. i also tried running initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img from the boot.ini, but that didn't work either. All i get is a blinking white _ on a black screen. Any suggestions? I'm also wondering if there is some way i can get the files off hdb1, if i can access it somehow while in fedora.
Thanx
--Ryan

Petra9 · 01-20-2005, 06:40 AM

You said that you can't mount any device other then your hard drives (I really don't know why, I could mount any device I head), but where did this come from: "/mnt/usbflash" or "/mnt/fd0" ? That's probably why you get that message directory doesn't exist.

Can you mount your hda while in rescue mode? I suppose you have your Win installed on hda. Do you have any FAT partitions there, if you don't try make one small with Partition Magic and use it instead of floppy:

Code:

$mkdir /mnt/fat
$mount -vfat /dev/hda5 /mnt/fat
$dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=/mnt/fat/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

where hda5 is your fat partition (it could be on your hdb as well).

brius · 01-20-2005, 01:49 PM

no, i can't mount my windows partition when in rescue mode, because it is a raid partition, and fedora doesn't recognize it. I'll try the commans you gave me though, and post again later today.
--Brius

brius · 01-20-2005, 04:40 PM

Still didn't work. all the mkdir /mnt/fd0 did was make a directory under the mnt directory, it didn't actually make linux realize i had a floppy drive. So when i did the dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=/mnt/fat/linux.bin bs=512 count=1 it didn't work. It just said that /mnt/fd0/linux.bin was not a valid directory. Any suggestions on what i'm doing wrong?
Thanx again
--Brius

Petra9 · 01-21-2005, 01:20 PM

You don't have to use name /mnt/fd0 for your floppy directory, you can call it /mnt/floppy or even /floppy (if you want you can call it /mnt/cdrom but that doesn't make much sense), as long as you specify it correctly in your mount command. But /dev/fd0 is always name of your floppy device.

I think Fedora is doing automatic mounting of devices when inserted, so when you insert a floppy, before you try to mount it, run mount command with no arguments:

Code:

$ mount

and if there is a line that contains /dev/fd0, then you already have it mounted, and all you have to do is look for the directory name in that line, and then use it in dd command:

Code:

$ dd if=/dev/hdb1 of = <dir name for floppy>/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

where dir name could be /mnt/floppy, /media/floppy, /floppy or what ever.

If there is no line containing /dev/fd0, then you have to first make mount point with mkdir, and then mount your floppy. mkdir command just makes the directory, it's the mount command you have to use after you made /mnt/fd0 or any other mount point:

Code:

$ mkdir <dir name for floppy>
$ mount /dev/fd0 <dir name for floppy>

Then you run the dd command the same way.

Don't forget to unmount it, after you are finished, with umount command.

One more thing - be sure that your floppy is empty before you use dd command.

brius · 07-25-2005, 02:45 PM

sorry i haven't posted for quite a while

, but i've been caught up in school and work lately. Anyways, i'll try it tonight, and post the results hopefully tomorrow.