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I've recently tried to set up a dual boot system with Fedora and windows 2000.
A couple of years back I did the same with windows 2000 and Redhat 7.3, but after reading
overclockersclub's article
(overclockersclub url + /guides/dual_boot_fedora_xp.php)
I decided it was time again.
Before describing my setup/installation, here's my problem:
Problem is that now that I'm done, I can boot into linux just fine, but when I boot into windows
2000 it displayes the black and white screen that says loading windows 2000, and the ascii bar at
the bottom moves all the way to the right but then it stops. The machine just sits there.
Strangely enough, the first time I booted into windows after installig linux, I got a blue screen
of death with error message saying "BOOT DEVICE UNAVAILABLE".
Install order and configuration.
1. 1 serial ATA disk. 160 GB. clean
2. Windows 2000 installed, creating 6 gig partition. rest of space left alone
3. installed fedora core 1. Grub used. left windows partition alone, created
3 new partitions(/, boot, and swap)
4. fedora installed fine, rebooted. Grubs comes up first, 3 choices (up, smp and dos)
5. boots into fedora just fine.
6. change grub label for windows from dos to windows
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 765 6144831 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 766 778 104422+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 779 19328 149002875 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 19329 19457 1036192+ f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 19329 19456 1028128+ 82 Linux swap
I realize this is somewhat different from last time where I, as several sites still recommend, use
the windows boot loader and dd the 512kb from boot partition and edit windows's boot.ini file.
BUt supposedly I should get away with usig hte linux bootloader now. The only difference I see is
that I use the same harddrive for both OS's. But I can't see why that should be a problem.
After comparing /boot/grub/menu.lst on my SuSE installation to your Fedora, I'd suggest you try a test. After 'title Win2000', change the line which reads rootnoverify (hd0,0) to root (hd0,0). Then restart/reboot/whatever and select the win os.
PS root (hd0,0) was what SuSE set up for me. It's also what OpenLinux set up for me when I used that distro (pre-SCO days). I've never had probs booting into my windo$e partition.
I tried changing bootnoverify to boot, but it didn't only led grub to report an error saying something to the effect of execution format no supported.
And then it went back into the gub menu again.
I also tried adding the makeactive option, but no change
I've tried installing Grub in the boot partition(/boot) or as part of MBR.
.Both as part of the installation or as part of the post install(using grub-install).
No luck.
I've loaded the windows 2000 setup disk and gone into recovery mode. But for some reason it sees the windows partition as damaged or currupt. No amount on fixmbr or fixboot commands gets my windows boot back. On top of this I cannot create a fedora boot disk as the kernel is too big. so after I do fixmbr, or if I load grub into /boot, my machine is unusable.
The weirdest thing is that during Fedora install(windows in installed first) I specifically make sure that the windows partitions is NOT touched. and GRUB is NOT installed in MBR. But after linux install Windows will no boot. I get blue screen with "BOOT DEVICE INACCESSIBLE". That just does NOT make any sense to me.
I've tried mixes of primary and extended partitions, boot sector first or not. I don't have any more options soon. The only thing I haven't tried is LILO. But I really don't want to go through all the same permutations as Grub.
I have also XP on the master drive with NTFS file system /dev/hda (D:\).
I installed RedHat 9 .... after reboot i can't see XP anymore? Can anyone advise me what to do?
You might find it easier to install and use LiLo instead of Grub. I believe that LiLo is much easier to maintain and edit than Grub. You may have to use a commercial application like Partition Magic to fix your MBR, and once that it's done, then make sure that you have a boot floppy made up so you can still access your Linux distro. If you MBR now boots up Windows, then use your floppy to access your Linux distro. Then edit Lilo to include Windows as part of the boot menu. If you use Mandrake, this is easy, since in can be done in the GUI control panel. Otherwise, you will have to do it manually using text mode.
I have LiLo installed in Windows MBR, with no problems, but you also have the option of installing it on the first partition of your Linux distro.
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