Unable To Boot To Fedora When Grub Installed in /boot Partition
 

1-first,i am sorry if im posting in the wrong post,i dont have much experience in this,but since im a fedora newbie,i thought this would be the best place.

2-this is the info bout my computer that i think are relavent to the subject:
-pentum 4 ht 3.00 ghz
-1 gig ram
-400 gig hardisk(give and take)

3-my actions:
-i formated my hardisk,installed windows on 15 gb of the hardisk,and left the rest of the hardisk unpartitioned,then i rebooted from fedora 5 dvd previosly downloaded.
-to the important part,in the section where fedora asks me what to do,i chose to custom the layout,i found my ntfs windows installation,and the rest unpartitioned,i made a /boot partition of 128mb,then made an lvm,and put in it a 2048mb /swap partition,a 10gb "/" partition,and a 3.5 gb /home partition,and the rest i made into vfat format so i can format in windows ntfs format later.
-the whole idea is that i wanted to install grub on the /boot partition so that i wouldnt medle with the master boot of the windows,so,i clicked the advance option,and told it to install it on the /boot partition,then installed,after it was done,and i rebooted,it went straight to windows.

4-why am i doing this manually and not let fedora to it:
-lets just say i got advice to do it this way for future reasons,so plz dont tell me let fedora do it :D

5-THE QUESTION:
so can some1 plz tell me how to install grub on a /boot partition and boot from there,while configuring the rest of partitions like i wrote in point number 3,so that i can get the screen that lets me choose what to boot when i reboot without installing it on the master like fedora does automaticaly?

NOTE: plz advise me in the graphical mode,not the text,for i am still a newbie.

Well apart from the windows and that I'm using a different distro, your partition scheme is pretty much the same as mine.

I suspect that you can't boot the fedora because you've actually put the bootloader in the wrong place.

It's quite normal, during install to put the bootloader on the MBR i.e. the first section of the first hard drive (if more than one), that way, the bootloader can "see" all installed OS and offer the choice, of course, that actually means that it will overwrite the windows bootloader. This isn't a problem.

So if I'm guessing right, by installing the bootloader to the /boot partition, the only reason you can't boot the system is because the system is still seeing the windows bootloader - which can of course, be made to boot a linux system, but thats rather involved/convoluted/confusing if you have only just started with linux.

My suggestion. You already have the partitions set up, so just re-run the installer using all the same info for the partitons that you are already aware of, get the system re-installed (don't worry about the windows), but when the installer gets to the bootloader section, tell it to install to the MBR. It's not a case of "letting the fedora do it all for you". The boot stuff should be in the boot partition/boot directory already it just depends where, on how you've set up the partitions

Once you've completed that, and booted into the linux, if you looked into the /boot partition you will see all the grub files needed to manage the bootloader, the file that you need to be aware of i.e. for changing defaults etc, should be called /boot/grub/menu.lst - the only bit of windows actually affected is the actual MBR (major boot record). If you're worried about this, then you can sort that - I think it's a case of booting the windows disk, selecting the repair option, then doing "fixmbr" (the actual command is dependant on which version of windows you run so a visit to google might help for exact info).

Your question/query about doing it all graphically? well, it's quite common for systems not to allow graphical logins to the root account - it's a safety/caution thing. I've only ever used other rpm based distros (SuSE, Mandrake/Mandriva, etc etc). I understand that fedora uses the gnome desktop environment as default - the ones I've used usually use KDE (more windows like - and IMO more intuitive, but thats a personal preference thing - I've never got on with gnome). There might be a facility to "open file manager as SuperUser" amongst the plethora of stuff in the start menu - if so, then you can do stuff graphically that way. If there isn't, then you'd need to find out how to config the system so that you can just log in graphically as root - thats something I can't help you with - as I say, I don't use gnome.

Sorry I can't be more specific.

regards

John

p.s. erm, not knowing much about lvm, I'm a bit confused by the partitoning scheme - so I have to make a few presumptions. PC's only normally allow 4 primary partitons on a single hard drive. So I suspect that you have (using the nomenclature for EIDE/PATA hard drives), /hda1 - which will be the windows, /hda2 which will be the /boot then you have extended /hda3 which will make the /swap, / and /home (if you set them up in that order) /hda5, /hda6 and /hda7 respectively. Which translates into 3 primary partitions and 3 logical ones. If your system has an SATA hard drive, you might find that the naming is slightly different. I understand (might be wrong) that SATA drives would be /sda1, /sda2, /sda3 etc etc rather than /hda?

Erm, plus, if you have, say, something similar to above, it also might be a little easier if you chose to have the /home as a linux file system - ext3 or something, but then have an addtitional partition for vfat so you can write too it from windows or linux. I did have a problem trying to do that before (when I was still dual booting linux with XP). The vfat partition I made, I made with a linux partitioner, so it meant that the system saw it as a linux fat32 partition - this meant that the bloody XP wouldn't see it. I should have made it with/from XP so that the XP could definitely see it, then the linux _should_ have been able to see it as well (but stuff like that is all part of the "learning curve"). I'm just thinking that you might be trying to run before you can walk, if you see what I mean (i.e. I'm not trying to be patronising, just explain the snags I had when I was trying something similar).

big john,a million thanks buddy,i still didnt do what u said,but ur answer to my post was just extreamly helpful,and i will do what u say in a bit,but im kinda hung up on a few downloads,but i just want to ask one more q :

as u xplained,its imposible to boot from the /boot partition,so i will keep it in mbr,but since im not gona install the grub there,then why make a boot partition to begin with?and do i need to?

and bout graphicly,i meant in the begining of the instalation,u get a choice to install by text or with an interface,so i just meant i wanted the answer not to b n the text mode thingy,but still,the extra info u gave me was great dude.

and i do have a sata,and i think the numbering sequence is pretty much as u said,but i really cant remember,which reminds me of another q:
there is a check box during choosing file type and mount type while partitioning,it sais force to b primary,when do i use this?in my case,do i need to use it?

and another q,sorry,really last q,when the grub thing shows me the os's it has seen,it calls the first fedora,and the second other,do i have to change the namme of other to windows?or is it fine to keep it that way

again,thank you for ur time and consideration.

I think putting Grub in the root partition is common in Linux. The problem is to know how to use a boot loader.

If a user installs 100 systems in a PC he/she can only puts one boot loader in the MBR while the remaining 99 systems must have the boot loaders in their respectively partitions. Thereafter it is up to the user to tell the boot loader residing the MBR to boot the rest of the 99 systems.

The principle behind is the MBR's can boot other boot loaders by "chainloading". All boot loaders can perform chainloading including XP. In general it takes 1/10 of the effort to ask Grub to chainload another system than asking the NTLDR of XP to multi-boot.

The systems as installed by the Fedoranewbie can only boot XP. TO make XP boot Fedora take a look at the Task E4 in the last link of my signature.

The 10 times effort XP needs to boot a Linux than that by a Linux boot loader is because XP needs the first 512 bytes of Fedora's boot loader to be available inside its "C" drive as the bugger is either too stupid or too lazy to read it off a Linux partition (XP does not support Linux and officially doesn't read a Linux partition). If you have access to the Linux, in order to copy its boot loader, you can restore Grub into the MBR. Why bother begging XP to do it?

To put Grub into the MBR from Fedora which currently doesn't boot see Task B3. Fedora installation has a rescue mode with which a user can peform the similar function.

Lastly I have no sympathy with any newbie wanting to boot two systems with one that doesn't boot but still insists on operating only in the graphic mode and wants to avoid at all cost getting into the text mode. Well if you haven't got a system you will have no access to its graphic mode! Don't want to touch the text mode should be for a user never booting more than one system.

All boot loader works in a text mode before an operating system, providing the graphic mode, is available. An operating system is the middle man here. If you have an issue with a boot loader you need to talk to it directly and that can only be done in text mode, including the instruction to put itself back into the MBR. That is fact of life for the boot loaders in a PC system. If you see a graphic screen it is only the installer communicating with the boot loader on your behalf.

XP's NTLDR in MBR can boot 10 systems (9 by chainloading). Lilo can do 27 images and Grub can eat more than 100 systems. It is all up to a user to instruct a boot loader to serve what it supposed to do.

It's done like this:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...049#post905049

Read that post carefully since it was not directly aimed at your question so as to be sure to execute all necessary steps. Have fun.