[SOLVED] vista + fedora: where is grub?

belliott4488 · 11-01-2009, 11:57 AM

I just installed Fedora 10 on a PC that had Vista on it, but when I reboot I am not given the option of booting Linux.

The PC has two hard drives, so first I shrank each NTFS partition as much as Windows would let me, then I proceeded with the Fedora install (from a DVD, for which I had downloaded the image from the Fedora Unity Respin site).

I was hoping that the Fedora installer would just pick the best options for me, since I had no reason to override them (as far as I knew). I don't recall being given an option of where to install the bootloader; I just remember seeing "Installing Bootloader" being displayed after all the packages had finished loading, so I assume it was placed in a default location. There was a screen that showed me something that looked like bootloader menu options (it included "Fedora" as the default and something else, like "Other", which I took to mean Vista), so I just accepted whatever defaults it offered. I was pretty much trusting that the installer would handle everything for me.

Anyway, when I reboot I am now sent directly to the Windows bootloader, but the only options it gives me are to boot Vista or to run some kind of hardware diagnostic tool.

Shouldn't I be sent to grub, which would then give me the choice of
Vista or Fedora? That's what I was expecting.

I'm running a Pentium2 dual-core 64-bit processor (or at least, I *assume* it is, since Vista identifies itself as "Vista 64 bit"), and I installed the Fedora-Unity-20090414-10-x86_64 respin.

Are there bootloading options somewhere I can edit by hand? Or alternatively, is there a safe way to re-run the installer to see exactly where it put grub and maybe change some options, i.e. without repeating the entire installation process?

Thanks!
Bruce

yancek · 11-01-2009, 12:52 PM

If you get the vista bootloader on boot, you didn't install Grub stage1 file to the master boot record. You can edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file or the /boot/grub/grub.con file. Not sure which one Fedora 10 uses. Load your Fedora CD an open a terminal/konsole and run the command: fdisk -l (lower case Letter L) as root, type su or su - to get to root, enter password, post the output of your partition information here to get help.

belliott4488 · 11-01-2009, 01:17 PM

Let's see ... first, I didn't understand how to open a "terminal/konsole", but when I run the installer in "rescue mode" it gets me to a command prompt, which I take to be the same thing.

Here's some of what I get in response to fdisk -l (I'm not copying all of it since I'm typing on a different machine, and I assume details like the exact numbers blocks/partition are not important - let me know if otherwise):

Code:

# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.9 GB, {.....} bytes
255 heads, {.....}

   Device Boot {.....} System
/dev/sda1      {.....} HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 *    {.....} Linux
/dev/sda3      {.....} Linux LVM


Disk /dev/sdb: 120.0 GB, {.....} bytes
255 heads, {.....}

   Device Boot {.....} System
/dev/sdb1 *    {.....} HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2      {.....} Linux LVM

What do the "*" under the "Boot" header imply? Bootloaders? Boot partitions? Are they the same thing? Is there an obvious reason why the Linux & Windows boot partitions are on different drives?

How can I tell where grub was installed? What would be the correct location for this configuration? I've seen suggestion both that it should be in the MBR (or Vista won't give me the option to boot Linux) and that it should not be in the MBR (or Vista will overwrite it, and thus prevent my booting Linux).

Thanks,
Bruce

r3sistance · 11-01-2009, 01:22 PM

Just to check, you have two hard drives, you didn't by chance accidently install the bootloader to the wrong hard drive, it's possible you could have skipped over the option and did it to the wrong hard drive? You could perhaps try switching the boot order of the two HDDs around and see if this changes things, if not then it sounds like the grub bootloader did not install to the MBR what-so-ever and will require either a full reinstallation or a grub-install run.

belliott4488 · 11-01-2009, 01:36 PM

Yow - I don't know! I was expecting to be given a choice about where to install the bootloader, but if I was, then somehow I missed it ... (I *have* had the flu lately ...).

I was given the choice about how to partition the free space on each drive, but the default option looked sensible to me - that's all I remember.

So, what exactly are my options?

1. Change the boot order of the drives: this is done via the DIP switches or jumpers on the drives, right? One of them is "master" and the other "slave"? How do I know the correct settings - are they universal across all manufacturers?

2. grub-install: do I just do this from the command line?

3. Full reinstall: I guess I don't mind taking the time for this if it will fix things. I'll keep a careful eye out for any mention of options for installing the bootloader, so I don't just repeat what I did the first time. Do I first need to uninstall anything from the first attempt, or will the installer just copy over all the files?

-Bruce

belliott4488 · 11-16-2009, 11:05 AM

Just to close out this thread:

I found that the Vista bootloader was installed on dev/sdb rather than dev/sda, where the Fedora installer wanted to put grub by default, as suggested by previous responses. When I switched to dev/sdb it all worked.

Actually, I can't boot into Vista now, but I think that's just a simple change to my grub config file, which I'll make if I ever decide that I want to boot into Vista again. Or, maybe I'll just remove it forever - who needs it? ;-)

thanks for the responses,
Bruce