I wanted to dual boot FC6 with windows on my machine, as I'm looking to get to grips with linux. I formatted my computer with the windows CD, and I set up several partitions. I'm a little unsure how exactly I partitioned my drive because I kept on deleting and recreating them, but I think I wanted a large 220gb-ish partition for windows, 100mb for the /boot partition, 4gb for the swap and the rest for the / directory.

I installed windows fine on the largest partition, and it worked when I checked it. Then I put in the FC6 dvd and installed it on the correct drives (I thought). Booted into Fedora Core 6 fine, but when I tried to boot into Windows it just stopped. It boots into grub okay, gives me the choice of FC6 or Windows, boots Fedora okay, but when I select Windows to boot, in prints something I can't remember exactly right now, but it's like

something (hd0, 4)
chainload+1

but it just hangs there. I thought I had possibly effed up the Windows MBR, but I thought fair enough, I'll just stick in my windows CD and format again. Alas, this is the worst part, I can no longer boot from CD. I've tried both my Windows CD and my FC6 DVD, but when the PC says 'Press any key to boot from CD...', I press the key, and it hangs, then the screen goes black.

I ran fdisk -l, here is the output :

Disk /dev/sda: 300.0 GB, 300067970560 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 14 36480 292921177+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 14 28059 225279463+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 28060 35970 63545076 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 35971 36480 4096543+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris


I've tried pressing 'e' at the grub screen and changing (hd0, 4) to (hd0, 1), (hd0, 2) up to 7, I think, and then I went (hd1, 0), (hd1, 1) etc, but to no avail.

I have a problem now, as I can't just format my hard drive with a disk. So, any help would be appreciated!

I've never heard of anything like this before. I assume when you say pressing the 'e' in the grub menu for (hd1, 0), if you're using a sata drive shouldn't it be sd1, 0? I don't have a sata drive so I'm not certain how it works.

Have you checked the BIOS for the boot order to make sure cd drive is set to bootable?

Just some thoughts!

***UPDATE***

Can you use a windows/dos boot floppy and type fixdisk /mbr?

Many have problems with grub!

I have 2 SCSI HDs and I put FC6 on the second.

grub outs its stuff on sda0

After installing FC6, and rebooting, I got a grub> prompt.

Luckily I typed in setup (sda0) or was it (sda) and it worked.

From an internet search, I see
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hda0,0)

>grub-install --recheck /dev/sda

I've found that persisting in rebooting to the CD works even powering off first.

Sounds stupid but didgital computers are nor determinsitic as many think.

I've learned the hard way, before installing, ALWAYS fdisk -l to learn what the partition names are

Thanks very much for the replies.

The CD drive is definitely set to bootable. It also definitely works, as I'm able to use it in Linux. I tried to make an MSDOS bootable floppy disk on the pcs at my uni, and seemed to work, but when I put it in my computer and tried to boot from it, I got the message "IO error, please replace disk". I tried this with two disks, neither worked. And I know the floppy works, because it allowed me to transfer files to and from the disk and hard drive within linux. Maybe I'm making the floppy incorrectly? In Windows I right-clicked on my Floppy drive and 'made MSDOS boot floppy'.


Also tried the root (hd0, 0) and setup (hd0, 0) commands at the grub prompt, still doesn't work. I couldn't get this command to work though:

>grub-install --recheck /dev/sda

I don't have a computer to do my work on at the moment, it's so annoying. Any help appreciated!

I had the same problem about a year ago and eventually reloaded XP Prof

in the meantime...choices

(1) reinstall grub. Load FC6 install DVD or rescue CD

>fdisk -l to list drives and partitons
>chroot /mnt/sysimage/
>grub-install hda0 may be different for SATA
try
>setup hda0

I'll scour the forums for commands on SATA drives...search on "grub sata"

(2) find a W98 diskette of some kind and enter fdisk /mbr

in one forum gonzalo76 says

grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)

look at the forum contributor=shaolin

(3) install ntfs so you can access your files under XP Prof

http://www.linux-ntfs.org/
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/6/i386/
http://www.mjmwired.net/

I backed up all my files, I don't have any on the NTFS partition so it's not necessary to install anything to view windows. All I really want to do is go back and do the whole hard drive again, clean.

After I ran the root (hd0,0) and setup (hd0) commands at the grub prompt, it still wouldn't boot into windows, but I tried to boot from my FC6 CD today, and it worked! However, it still won't boot from the Windows CD. I'm in the process of aquiring another Windows CD and seeing if it'll boot from that. I reinstalled FC6, I don't know why, perhaps just to make sure I could. Luckily, it didn't break anything that wasn't already broken.

I'll let you know what happens after I get the new Windows CD.

The windows install disk requires a primary partition.
There is probably nothing (physically) wrong with your XP disk.

I'd say at a rough guess you installed XP into the extended partition - however it would have put its boot files into sda1. And marked it bootable.
This will work if the partitions are unused.
When you installed FC6 you used this same partition as /boot.
Goodbye to the windows boot files.

I reckon I've overwritten the Windows boot files too, but why would that stop me reinstalling with a new CD?

I tried to use a different windows CD yesterday, and it still didn't work. Where the FC6 install DVD boots straight into anaconda, BIOS asks me if I want to boot from the Windows CD (by pressing any key). When I press a key, I noticed a line written to the top of the screen over all the BIOS information saying "Setup is inspecting your system settings" or something along those lines, then the screen just goes black, and it hangs.

It's really weird to me that the FC6 DVD boots but the Windows CD won't. Any theories?

The Windows CD is booting - it just won't proceed.
The M$oft installer appears to only look at (Windows) primary partitions - bootable also is a consideration. If it can't find what it considers an acceptable environment it just stops. This is from observation, I haven't seen the code.
You need to create a VFAT or NTFS primary partition.

To save a lot of messing around in your case I'd move /boot into a logical partition, delete sda1 and recreate it as NTFS.
The try your XP disk.
Fix up the bootloader and fstab and everyone should be happy.

Thanks a lot for your help!

Okay, that sounds good, but how exactly would I do that? I have the FC6 DVD so could I mess with the partitions in that?

I'm noot sure how to move /boot into a different partition, and when I do is it okay to be in the same partition for / of FC6?

What exactly do you mean by 'fix up the bootloader and fstab'? I'm really new to linux, I've never even heard of fstab. I know what the bootloader is, but are you saying to reinstall it?

I'll have a look with the FC6 DVD tonight, see if I can figure out how to do any of this stuff.

Should all be do-able from the FC6 DVD - don't know as I left the Redhat mire at RH9.
Simplest solution would be to delete everything and start again. Plan your partitions, making sure you give Windoze a primary, and install it first.
If you still want to install Windoze to a logical partition, it will require its own primary partition as well.
Then FC6 - all should be set up (correctly) for you.

Part of the problem was this:

Windows wasn't on the first partition of the Master drive. That should be amended to:
something (hd0, 4)
map (hd0,4) (hd0,0)
map (hd0,0) (hd0,4)
makeactive
chainload+1

to fool windows into behaving as though it's on the first partition.

The second part of the problem is making multiple changes to partition boundaries, then trying to write files. One of the few times in Linux that re-boot is necessary is when changing partition boundaries. The system is working with the partition table that was in force when you booted. Then you change the partition table without re-booting, and you end up with overlaping partition boundaries. The system will choke. Been there, done that. Had the devil of a time cleaning up my mess.

Plan your partitions before you start. To avoid hassles with windows, put it in the first partition. Re-boot is required to finish installation. Once you are assured that windows boots, put the Linux cd in the drive, and re-boot.

Make your Linux and swap partitions, and install the system. You may be required to re-boot. The grub screen should show both windows and Linux. Boot LInux to finish the installation, then re-boot and select windows from the menu to be sure that it will boot as expected when selected.

Yes, it worked! Thanks for your help guys.

I tried to format using the FC6 CD, but it wouldn't let me do it without installing Fedora at the same time, and I couldn't work out how to do that without putting it in the first partition (since there were no other OSs on at the time).

I tried a bunch of CD bootable partition managers, and the only one that worked was from the Universal Boot CD (great CD). I formated the whole hard drive, then wouldn't you know it, the windows CD would boot. So, I carried out a sensible install this time, with windows on the first partition, Linux on the second (swap on third). Everything's working now! Hooray!

Now that hard drives are so huge, whenever I install a new one, I always partition it before installing any OS. This way, alot of issues don't come up later on. I'm a distro junkie anyway!