Hi everyone, and Merry Christmas!

I have been running a dual-boot system with Win XP and Fedora Core 2 now for some time, with windows installed on the first hard disk and Fedora on the second. My lovely parents were kind enough to buy me a 300GB SATA drive for xmas, so I have set about trying to install xp and fedora core 3 on it.

Note the word trying...

My first step was to install XP on the drive, using the windows xp diskpart program to create an 8GB partition for windows to install on (would be drive c: in windows). After windows was successfully installed on this partion, I then installed core 3, creating the extra partitions that were necessary during the installation using disk druid.

After the install, Fedora boots no problem, but when i try to boot into windows, I am treated with a brief glimpse of the splash screen, before I get a BSOD declaring: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

Could anybody help me with this? One suggestion I have found online is to use the xp recovery console - I have tried booting of the XP CD and going into recovery mode. CHKDSK tells me the partition c: has unrecoverable errors and I cannot read anything from it. The FIXMBR tool also has no effect.

Could somebody please, please help me - I would be willing to undertake a complete re-install of the entire system if people think it would help. My partition scheme is as follows (sda1 is the only partition created by the win xp install prog):

/dev/sda1 - NTFS - 8GB - Windows C:
/dev/sda2 - EXT3 - 100MB - /boot
/dev/sda3 - EXT3 - 10GB - /
/dev/sda4 - Extended partition
/dev/sda5 - FAT32 - 50GB - Windows D: (I hope, haven't tried accessing from win yet)
/dev/sda6 - FAT32 - 15GB - Windows E: (I hope, haven't tried accessing from win yet)
/dev/sda7 - Linux swap - 2GB
/dev/sda8 - Linux LVM


Many, many thanks in advance.

Pete.

If I recall correctly, when installing Linux and Windows on the same drive (I discourage this installation method; seperate drives works flawlessly), you have to install Linux first, and then install Windows. Otherwise, Windows won't play friendly.

Regards,
Willie.

Thanks for the quick reply!

The windows XP disk partition software does not seem to recognise any of the partitions that I have created on the disk, including sda1, which it created itself! Instead, there seems to be only one partition defined, which appears to be the size of the disk itself. The linux fdisk, however, still shows all the partitions correctly.

Should I perform a fresh install of linux, recreating the entire partition table? Or shall I try and install XP into the only space it can see? Won't I just be presented with the same problem once I get to the stage of installing XP again?

Thanks again.

Pete

Sod it...

I'm just gonna try installing XP anyway, if it don't work, I'll start wiv a fresh install of Fedora, leaving an NTFS partition at sda1 for windows to use for installation. Is it best to create an NTFS partition with the XP diskpart? or is it all good to use the linux fdisk?

thanks again for the help.

If I was in your situation, then I would re-create the whole partition table and just start over, with linux first; that way, you can put XP on the drive as an 'addon' , and Windows should play nicely that way; Windows is not a big fan of change (or so I hear!)

Good luck,
Willie.

Thanks for the info, will try that now. Hopefully a nights rest will do both myself and my PC some good!!!

Pete

and also remember that window wouldn't boot if you don't set it as the first partition of that drive
i don't know why all of you are saying install linux first, then window
but that might still work as long as the partition for window is the first partition.

Exactly. Windows needs to be the first partition, but installing it first (as seen above) has bad affects. Windows is stubborn, and you have to beat around the bush with it to get it work properly with another OS.

Another thing you might want to note, though, is that there was (and maybe still is) a bug in the Fedora installation that can affect how windows boots after the FC install. I still say install Linux first, even though it wont be on the starting partition.

Regards,
Willie.

Hmm...

I have performed the following steps:

1. Boot off the XP disk into the recovery console and use diskpart to create an 8GB partition at the beginning of the drive.

2. Boot the Fedora Rescue CD and add the other partitions - final partition table looks like:
/dev/sda1 - 8GB - NTFS
/dev/sda2 - 100MB - /boot
/dev/sda3 - 10GB - /
/dev/sda4 - Win 95 Extended Partition (LBA) (I thought, it might help XP if the extended partition had this ID)
/dev/sda5 - 50GB - FAT32 LBA
/dev/sda6 - 15GB - FAT32 LBA
/dev/sda7 - 2GB - Linux swap
/dev/sda8 - Rest of drive - Linux LVM

3. Installed Fedora Core 3 using the above partition scheme - this works fine.

4. Begin XP install...

And that's where I'm stuck; Windows XP cannot see the partition scheme as above, rather it just sees one partition, which occupies the entire disk and is of an unknown type.
This is practically where I was last night, with a working Fedora install and a non-working XP install, when I tried to re-install XP it showed the same thing, one giant, unknown, partition. When I tried to install to this, it formats the entire drive and corrupts the partition table so it cannot reboot into the next stage of the install - nice.

Looks like I'm either gonna have to go back to using one of my older hard drives, or buying another SATA drive (obviously it won't have to be a 300GB, but it's still an annoyance).

Thanks to everyone for their help so far.

It really shouldn't be this difficult to get two OSes to share a HDD.

woww....
i never heard of install linux then window thing before
Did they change something in Fedora comparing to Red Hat Linux?
i thought by installing window first, grub will automatically pickup window header and add a selection in grub.
i am still using red hat linux 9.0, would it work if i just upgrade it using fedora 3 's installation disc?
lol.. i am starting to ask questions now

If grub doesn't pick up the windows header, its no big deal, because you can add this yourself anyhow. Also, I've always been told to install Linux first before installing Windows. I chickened out at installing on the same HDD, so I got two different ones...as I've said, this plan is almost failsafe (as long as you select the drive to install to!)

I'm sorry that this installation isn't going right for you...I wish there was some information I could provide, but it seems that it doesn't work for you either way (Windows first, or Linux first), and this just baffles me!

Oh, and Tricky, don't rush on that FC3 upgrade . . .

Regards,
Willie.

y not?
is it better or worse?
i thougth it's alway better since it's fedora..
but explain it though

Only do that upgrade if you have proper backups ... I've seen lots of reports of hairy problems when doing upgrades, mostly in the #fedora support IRC channel. I don't think all the bugs have been worked out of Fedora Core 3, and by the time they are, Fedora Core 4 will be under development.

Regards,
Willie.

Thanks for all the help willie , this whole thing has me baffled too. Think I'm just gonna take the chicken route, and get another hdd tomorrow. Like you say, it seems the easiest way for the two OSes to coexist is for them to be on seperate drives.

If it wasn't for my love of games, I wouldn't need Windows at all!

Pete

That's what wine is for. (Some game creators don't code so well . . . so not all of them work )

Regards,
Willie.