FCA Dual Boot issue
 

Respectful Greetings Linux community:
Sick of Microsoft I've decided to give Fedora Core 4 a try. I've purchased a "Red Hat Fedora and Enterprise Linux 4 Bible" by Chris Negus with the bootable DVD and CDs, I've installed a second Hard Drive on my computer and I've tried to install Fedora on it, but so far no success,
My system Info:

AMD Sempron 3000+ 2 Ghz
512 MB of RAM
Abit KV7-V Motherboard
Maxtor 120 GB 6B1209 Hard Drive (Windows XP is there, Master Drive)
Maxtor 120 GB 6Y1209 Hard Drive (This one is the Slave drive, jumpered accordingly)

This is what I’ve done so far

1) I zero wrote the Slave Drive
2) I installed FC4, configured to install GRUB to /dev/hda
3) Got an "error informing the kernnel about modifications to partition /dev/hdb2 - device or resource busy. This means Linux won't know about any changes you made to /dev/hdb2 until you reboot - so you shouldn't mount or use it in any way before rebooting"
4) Chose "cancel", then rebooted
5) Booted to XP first, then shut down the computer and then started it again and booted from the FC4 DVD
6) Installed FC4 completely (not the upgrade choice) again, same configuration (GRUB installed on /dev/hda)
7) No error messages this time.. but rebooted to XP! No signs of GRUB.
8) If I tried to boot for the Primary Slave drive I get a "Disk read error occurred, press ctr-alt-del to restart"
9) I booted from the FC4 DVD again, installed FC4 as un upgrade and changed GRUB config to boot from /dev/hdb2
10) Now the system wont boot to either WinXP or FC4, it stops at “Verifying DMI Pool Data”

I’m at loss and don’t know how to proceed from here. If I boot from the FC4 DVD and change GRUB to load on /dev/had the system will boot to XP pro and never start GRUB. If I leave as it is I cannot use my computer either…

I’d very much appreciate any input…

Drop a bootable DOS floppy in (with fdisk.exe) boot up the system and type

fdisk /mbr

That should get back your Windows while I make some sense out of your thread.

If you haven't got a bootable DOS floppy (or any one fron Win3x or Win9x) use the WIndows installation CD to boot, drop into recovery console and type

fixmbr

will do the same thing.

You will have a lot more confidence if you know how to get back the Windows every time
----------------edited addition---------------

Think you need a reboot to validate the partition created by FC.

I recommend to have the hard disk pre-partition if possible. FC needs only about 5Gb (that is what FC2, FC3 and FC4 got from me) and a Swap partition of 1Gb. If you fill generous give it a 10Gb.

Your master disk will be known as hda and slave hdb when they are on the same ribbon cable. Your Windows should be in hda1 partition.

I would partition the slave with hdb1 for FC and hdb2 for the swap and "instruct" FC to use them. Partitioning while installing can be confusing. Any Linux live CD can be used to do the partitioning using command "cfdisk /dev/hdb". You can get FC to do the partitioning but keep an eye on the instruction because FC can also set up several partitions instead of just one for you.

You have to put the boot loader Grub in the MBR, which is the first boot sector of the master disk (in the Windows disk). As the first Linux in the box your FC will not be bootable in hdb2 or hdb1.