FC3 and Windows XP Professional Dual boot installation problems

[provo1234]

I've read many docs on this topic but I'm still stuck. I have a 40GB hard disk. These are the series of events (in chronlogical order)..

1. Initially I had Windows XP Home as the only OS on my system. There were primarily 3 NTFS partitions. (C:15 GB ; D:15GB; E: 10GB). XP was installed on the D partition.

2. I decided to try out FC2. So I wiped out C: and in its place I created two ext3 partitions.
/ = ext3 = 14 GB
/swap = ext3 = 1 GB

Made E: a FAT32 partition so that I can share files between Fedora and Windows.

I later realized that I made two mistakes here ...
a) I forgot creating a partition for /boot.
b) I also deleted the vfat windows partition.

FC2 got installed and was working properly. I used GRUB as the boot loader. However, when I choose "Other" in the boot menu (during the system startup), I used to get a message which looked like follows...

rootnoverify(hd0, 3)
chainloader +1.

I changed and rechanged the grub.conf, but Windows never got loaded.

3. I upgraded Windows XP Home on D: to Windows XP Pro. Now my system only recognized Windows. The boot menu never appeared.

4. I upgraded FC2 to FC3. But the boot menu still does not appear though I reinstalled the GRUB.

This is my current sys configuration....
/ (root) - ext3 - 13GB - FC 3
/swap - ext3 - 1GB
C: - NTFS - Windows XP Professional
D: - FAT32

I need to make this system a dual boot. How do I make GRUB work properly? Right now, the only way I can get into Fedora is using a bootable disk.

Please advise.

Thanks
Shashi

[AdrianCha]

Erm one thing i noticed was if Linux was ur main system Grub always loaded, if Windows is then it doesnt. So yours ofcourse doesnt, i have downloaded an OS selector seperately to use and it all works fine, except my Linux doesnt load properly due to something i dont know yet.

[james_in_denver]

Windows doesn't play nice with Linux all the time, Upgrading from XP Home to XP Pro looks like it wiped out your original boot sector (which had "grub" installed in it) and replaced it with a vanilla Windows boot sector. You can also use the "fdisk -l" command from Linux command prompt, look for an asterisk under the boot column to see if that partition is marked as bootable.

You will then have to update the boot sector to get it to use the "grub" bootloader....can't help you much there as I use LILO....

[james_in_denver]

ps: you can also use the "fdisk /dev/hda" command to enter the fdisk utility to change the boot flags on your partitions......

I do know that grub has a means of "re-installing" itself in the appropriate boot sector, just don't know the syntax.....

[provo1234]

Thanks James. I will try that out later tonight.

[bobotaito]

To restore grub boot loader after installation of windows, boot from rescue cd or cd1 of installation set.
- If you boot from 1st cd, choose F5 to boot rescue environment, follows instructions until the terminal. At terminal :
# chroot /mnt/sysimage
# /sbin/grub-install

Your grub bootloader will be reinstalled.

[provo1234]

Here is the output of fdisk -l

/dev/hda
+ /dev/hda1 - /ext3 - / (root) - 13GB
+ /dev/hda2 - swap - /swap - 1GB
+ /dev/hda3 - NTFS - 8MB - * (boot)
+ /dev/hda4 - Extended
--+ /dev/hda5 - NTFS - 16GB
--+ /dev/hda6 - VFAT - 10GB

I tried to install FC3 all over again by elimitating hda1, hda2 and creating 3 partions for /, /boot and swap. But it wont let me do it as the max number of partitions is 6! Any solution to my problem? Please advise.

Thank you
Shashi

[provo1234]

PS:
Bobotaito, I tried chroot /mnt/sysimage. But I did not know where to install the grub (i.e on which partition).

[bobotaito]

Provo1234 : To reinstall GRUB, just boot to rescue mode as you did, at shell type :
# chroot /mnt/sysimage <-- to mount system partition
# /sbin/grub-install /dev/hda <-- to install Grub into the MBR of the first IDE disk under Linux.

For the problem of partitioning, it is not very necessary to separate /boot to a partition. If you really wanna, try to partition by another tool, not by partition tool of fc3. Then when install, don't choose automatic partition, mount the partitions to where you want and format them.

[provo1234]

Won't (/sbin/grub-install /dev/hda) wipe out Windows then? I've read somewhere that I need to install GRUB in the first sector of /boot partition and not on MBR. Correct me if I am wrong. Thanks again.