Windows XP SP3 Dual Boot with existing Fedora 15 Installation

SgtDilbert · #1 20th August 2011, 03:46 AM

Greetings,

In theory, I have some idea how to do this; but, beyond knowing that I need to back-up GRUB and replace it after using the install disc and using the "Rescue Linux Installation" option, I really don't know what I'm doing here.

Would someone please direct me to a guide or provide some guidance? I have a nice, solid, Fedora 15 install with all the programs, files, and configurations that I need to keep me sane; but, now I need to install Windows for some CAD applications and I happen to have an XP SP3 disc handy.

Is there a way to install Windows after Fedora or will I have to start from the ground up with and Windows install and then add Fedora 15 again?

Thanks very much,

-D

cristi89 · #2 20th August 2011, 09:18 AM

Here's a howto for Ubuntu but I believe the steps are similar for Fedora:
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_l...lled_first.htm

java generics

SgtDilbert · #3 20th August 2011, 09:14 PM

I worked through that tutorial up to the Restore Grub step Using the install cd. (I don't have a live cd)
When I enter sudo grub I do get into the grub> shell(if that is what it is called); but,
I do not get the same output from the commands as are given in the tutorial.

Code:

grub> root (hd0, 0)
root (hd0,0)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
grub> setup (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
 Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... no

Error 15t: File not found
grub> root (hd0,1)
root (hd0,1)

Error 22t: No such partition

Question:
What does partition type 0x83 mean?
What does the root (hd0,0) command do?

I do know that my F15 install is there? I just don't know how to get the MBR back from Windows, if that's what it is that I need to do?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. My end goal is a dual boot system and I have both OS's on separate drives fully installed. I only need to fix Grub.

Thanks,

-D

***glennzo*** · #4 20th August 2011, 09:47 PM

Where do you stand Sgt Dilbert? If I understand correctly, you have Fedora installed on one disk and Windows installed on another disk. Is this correct? Does Fedora boot without issues?

SgtDilbert · #5 20th August 2011, 10:17 PM

Fedora is installed on one disk, Windows is on another.

I can use the install disk to get me to a command line where I can see the partitions using fdisk -l but I'm not sure what I am looking at.

I cannot boot Fedora.

Windows now boots up.

Please let me know if I can clarify anything else.

Thanks very much,
-D

***glennzo*** · #6 20th August 2011, 11:20 PM

Most likely Windows boots because you installed it after Fedora and it overwrote the grub bootloader. This is why you can't boot Fedora. In my opinion you should reinstall grub.

The Fedora install disk should have an option called "Rescue Mode". If so, you can reinstall grub with it. Rescue Mode is well covered here but I'll try to give you a quick rundown, from memory. Also, can I assume that Windows is on disk 1 and Fedora is on disk 2?

* Boot the computer with the Fedora install disk.
* Choose Rescue Mode (Rescue Installed System).
* Choose language.
* Choose keyboard.
* Choose not to start the network (not needed).
There will be a few more screens, more informational than anything else, however, if it asks you to choose the disk/partition it should be obvious from the display what that choice should be. There is only one Linux installation.
* Press enter / OK until you reach the command line. You'll see something like this:

PHP Code:


			
sh 3.2#

Now type the following, pressing enter after each command:

PHP Code:


			
chroot /mnt/sysimage
grub-install /dev/sda

This will install grub to the MBR of the first hard disk. It won't "destroy" Windows. If all goes well you should see the following output:

PHP Code:


			
Installation finished. No error reported. 
This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map 
Check if this is correct or not.
If any of the lines is incorrect, fix it and re-run the script 'grub-install'.

# this device map was generated by anaconda
(hd0) /dev/sda
sh-4.0#

Type "exit" twice to reboot. You should get the grub menu offering Fedora and Windows (or Other).

Remember that I've typed most of this from memory, with a little help from my notes so there may be some unintentional mis-information, but at least you get the idea that grub can be easily reinstalled and you can be on your way dual booting in short order. It may be wise for you to research rescue mode before diving in based on what one Linux user says to do.

cherokeetux · #7 21st August 2011, 12:20 AM

Glennzo, thank you very much for all the help you have provided on this forum, you are one heck of a asset.

SgtDilbert · #8 21st August 2011, 02:33 AM

Glennzo,
Thanks for the prompt and informative response. I do run into an issue when I type:

Code:

grub-install dev/sdb
/dev/sdd1 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive

Odd when I have typed sdb and get sdd1 returned.
I found that sdb the linux partition when I looked at: /boot/grub/device.map

Code:

# this device map was generated by anacoda
(hd0)   /dev/sdb

Also, I noticed that when I type fdisk -l I see an asterisk under Boot for the HPFS/NTFS/exFAT drive and the drive with Fedora 15 on it. Are they both trying to boot?
How do I get windows to pipe down and just let grub boot up?

Thanks, so much.
-D
UPDATE
Tried

Code:

# grub-install --recheck sda
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
Installation finished. No error reported.
This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map.
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.

and it seems to have changed my device.map which is now

Code:

(fd0)    /dev/fd0
(hd0)   /dev/sda
(hd1)   /dev/sdc
(hd2)   /dev/sdd

And my BIOS Has SATA-0 and 3 as the windows and Linux Drives.
Any glaring mistakes I am missing?
Still can only boot into windows.

Many thanks,
-D
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SgtDilbert · #9 21st August 2011, 03:51 PM

Does the sequence from SATA-0 to SATA-5 matter when booting?
SATA-0 and 3 are both "On" in the system BIOS.

***glennzo*** · #10 21st August 2011, 04:34 PM

Beats the heck out of me. Sorry

sonoran · #11 21st August 2011, 05:37 PM

Hi Sarge~
try this in the grub shell:

Code:

root (hd1,0)
setup (hd0)

You have to tell grub where your fedora install is (hd1,0) and then tell it to install its boot code to the mbr of hd0, which is your first, booting drive. That new mbr will point to the code grub needs from the fedora install, including the config file.

Since that mbr is on a different drive than fedora (and the rest of grub), grub got confused.

It sounds as though your previous efforts might have done something to the device map - I don't know how that might affect things. It's all fixable, though.

SgtDilbert · #12 22nd August 2011, 01:42 AM

Thanks all,
Let me see if I understand this. Please, correct me if I am way off here..

/boot/grub/device.map is a simple text file that shows the sequence of booting and the first drive checked for boot instructions is (fd0), which is a floppy drive. If no floppy drive with boot instructions is present the hard-drives are then checked for boot instructions. (hd0), (hd1), and (hd2) are hard-drives that correspond to /dev/fd0, /dev/sda, /dev/sdc, and /dev/sdd respectively. (hd0) is the first drive that is checked and because the device.map file shows /dev/sda listed next to (hd0), sda is the drive that is searched for boot instructions first. Next (hd1) and (hd2) are checked which search /dev/sdc and /dev/sdd.
When I type "grub" in the shell that I obtain with the "Rescue" disk I am running the "grub" program and when I type:

Code:

root (hd1,0) 
setup (hd0)

I am installing grub on the first sector of hd1 which is the second hard-drive on my machine in the hd0 to hd2 sequence.
Did I miss anything so far?

Here is where I get confused:
When I type "fdisk -l" in the "rescued" shell after "chroot /mnt/sysimage" I can see that sda includes a small linux drive of about 2 GB, sdc is an NTFS(windows) drive, and sdd1 is a logical volume Linux drive. An asterisk for boot on the fdisk -l output is located in the windows and linux (lvm) drives. The first (smaller) linux drive has no boot next to it and it looks like both windows and linux are trying to boot; but, the windows drive is in the sequence sooner than the linux LVM drive so windows boots and it never gets to the linux drive.
In my BIOS I see SATA-0 which is windows and SATA -3 which is linux (both 1 TB drives) and I cannot change the order of the SATA sequence, though I can change the boot sequence of floppy to usb to hard-drives, etc.
So do I have to disconnect the cables and which SATA-0 with SATA-3 to get linux to boot or can I just change it in device.map and how does device.map change what the BIOS is doing with windows?

Thanks, I really just want to understand all of this and the man pages and other online resources are not clearing it up for me.

Best Regards,
-D

---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:38 PM ----------

Also, it sounds like device.map should only contain one item because once grub is found, there should be no reason to look in other drives.

sonoran · #13 22nd August 2011, 02:39 AM

The mbr is what the bios reads first, so if you want grub to be in control of the boot process, it must install its stage 1 there, to the mbr of the disk that is first in boot order.

There are at least 2 and sometimes more "stages" of grub code, because the mbr is very small and also contains the primary partition table. So the grub code in the mbr needs to know where the rest of itself is - that's the purpose of the root (hd1,0).

The "setup (hd0)" tells grub to put its first part on the mbr of hd0, the disk that will be read first by the bios. All that stage 1 will do is load the next stage and run it, but it has to know where that is located - in this case it's on the other drive, at the start of the first partition, which you've told it with "root (hd1,0)".

Clear as mud, right?

The device.map file is used by grub to map bios device names to grub device names (grub speaks its own language). I've never touched the file, and if you could restore it to its original state that would be good (always save a copy of a system file before you change it - yeah, now they tell me). Maybe there's a way to restore it - I'll read up on it (reading info grub is like visiting your crazy uncle).

SgtDilbert · #14 22nd August 2011, 03:03 AM

Thanks for getting back to me,
I am less confused; but, I still have a couple of questions:

Where does the actual MBR reside? Is it in the BIOS or on one of the SATA drives?
Can it be on the Windows drive and the Linux drive?

Also, when I type "grub" in the shell I get;

Code:

sh-4.2# grub
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.

    GNU GRUB version 0.97-71.fc15  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB
  lists possible command completions. Anywhere else in the TAB lists the possible
  completion of a device/filename.]
grub> setup (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)

Error 1: Invalid device requested
grub> root (hd0,0)
root (hd0,0)
  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x03
grub> setup (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
 Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... no

Error 15t: File not found

so it looks like grub is installed; but, stage1 is not where it should be.
I repeated this with hd1 and hd2 and stage1 was not found there either; but, I did find stage 1 in the /boot/grub directory of the original install which I access after: chroot /mnt/sysimage

So where is the grub shell looking for the stage1 file if it is not looking on /mnt/sysimage?

Thanks again for your help,

sonoran · #15 22nd August 2011, 03:55 AM

Each disk has a Master Boot Record - the first 512 bytes of the disk, which has to hold the primary partition table, some id info, and if the disk is used for booting, the bootstrapping code. The bios runs that code (440 bytes) - in the case of grub it's just the location of the next stage, which it loads and runs.

Quote:

grub> setup (hd0,0)

This should be just

Code:

setup (hd0)

which will fill the mbr of that drive with the first part of grub. The rest of grub, if I understand your setup, is not on hd0 but hd1.

The way I'm seeing this, you want hd0 - which is where you have windows installed - to boot. You have Fedora on hd1, and most of grub will be located there, at the first sector of the first partition (so: root (hd1,0) = second hard drive, first partition).

The first command, root (hd1,0) sets up grub to look for its files on your second drive, first partition.
The second command, setup (hd0) tells grub to put its bootstrapping code in the mbr of the first drive, and to point itself to the fedora installation on your second drive.

Grub will overwrite the windows boot code in the mbr of the first drive, and you will choose to boot either windows or fedora from grub's config file menu.

The grub shell has <TAB> completion, so you can enter for example "root" or maybe "root (" and then <TAB> through a list of what grub thinks are possible completions for that command. Of course, by now grub might be as confused as we are.