Hi everybody! I just installed Redhat 9.0 on my system. I've been having two problems, and I believe they are related. I have an 80 GB hard drive and a 20 GB hard drive on my system. The 80 GB hard drive has two partions: one FAT32 partition with Windows 98, and one NTFS partition with Windows 2000. I'm using the Windows 2000 boot manager to switch between the two OSes, so the NTFS partion is active. The 20 GB hard drive contains my Redhat partion. After I installed Redhat, the boot manager (GRUB) had the windows partion as an option, but when I selected it, the screen just said:

Booting 'Microsoft Windows'
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

The 80 GB hard drive is slaved to the 20 GB hard drive, so the 20 GB drive is HDD-0 in BIOS, and the 80 GB drive is HDD-1 in BIOS. When I switch the default booting drive in BIOS, Windows boots just fine (both 2000 and 98). I also noticed that I cannot access the other hard drive in Linux. I don't know if this helps, but I found in the Hardware Browser under Hard Drives, under Disk Information it says:

(sorry I had to use the code section - I know it's not code, but I couldn't figure out another way to get it to put spaces there )

Any help would be greatly appreciated, but keep in mind that I am very new to Linux, so please keep any suggestions or questions simple - I really don't much know what I'm doing here. Thanks!!!!

In your /boot/grub/grub.conf make sure the section to load Windows looks something like this:
In order to edit /boot/grub/grub.conf you need to have root privilege. Open up a terminal, then type "su" then enter your root password.
Then use a text editor to open it, for example "pico /boot/grub/grub.conf"

By the way you won't be able to directly boot Windows 98 or Windows 2000 fomr GRUB, you still need to go through Windows boot manager.

why don't you post your grub.conf.

It'll be in /boot

Sure thing:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title Microsoft Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

I have modified my grub.conf file, and now I am multi-booting. In fact, I am able to boot directly to Windows 98 and 2000 from Grub. This is actually due to the unusual way I have my drive partitioned. For reference, I'll explain: The standard method of dual booting Win 98 and 2000 is to install Windows 98 first, then install Windows 2000 on top of it. Windows 2000 then installs all of it's boot information on the FAT 32 partition where 98 resides. Instead of doing that, I installed Windows 2000 first, then used software called btsect (available at http://thpc.info/ ) to create a bootsect.dos file on the c: drive (I actuall put one on the 2000 partition and one on the 98 partition). Then, I modified the boot.ini file, made the 2000 partition active, and bingo - two fully bootable partitions with Windows 2000 in control. I doubt that will really help anyone, but I figured I'd mention it just in case. I'm working on getting Linux to see my FAT32 partition now, but I think I can handle that. Thanks a bunch for your help!!!!!!

Hi, i also problem access linux and windows. I install linux 7.3 into the same harddrive as my windows 2000. Only thing is different partition. It is on logical partition. Error like earlier mentioned appeared as i select windows 2000. What should i need to modify my grub ? What do u mean by terminal ? Pls advise. Thanks.

Regards
Daniel

If you only have single drive then map (hd0) etc won't do you any good.
post your grub.conf and output of "/sbin/fdisk -l"
by the way you could've started your own thread

Hi, because of the error, i use fdisk/mbr to overwrite the grub with windows mbr in order to start windows. Or else both windows & linux won't start. Now i still have the linux partition, anyway to start it or to modify the grub.conf ? or i need to reinstall ?

Regards
Daniel

After install linux when i select DOS , it got error like rootnoverify (hd1,0), chainloader +1, error 25: Disk read error. Anyway to boot into linux again ? I have fixmbr to make windows restartable so linux won't be booted . I also can't view grub.conf

Regards
Daniel

use the bootdisk you were asked to create during installation

My bootdisk failed during startup. Anywhere i can download a generic bootdisk ? What is Error 25 : Disk read error ?

Regards
Daniel

Hi, this is my grub.conf. Linux is installed on first harddrive, a logical partition. Windows 2000 is in primary partition.

Default=0
Timeout=0
Splashimage=(hd0,5)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Redhat Linux (2.4.7-10)
root (hd0,5)
Kernel /boot/vmlinuz--2.4.710 ro root=/dev/hda6 hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.7-10 img
title Dos
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1