On 2/10/06, Lief Hendrickson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At 12:05 PM 2/10/06 -0800, Carl Lowenstein wrote:
> >On 2/10/06, Lief Hendrickson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > At 01:45 PM 2/10/06 -0500, Rich Ernst wrote:
> > >
> > > >Lief Hendrickson wrote:
> > > >
> > > >>Can someone help with dual boot install problem?
> > > >>I installed a second hard drive on a system with Windows XP. The drive
> > > >>with the existing XP installation is master (hda). The drive is slave
> > > >>(hdb). The system also has a CD drive. It does not have a floppy
> > > >>drive.
> > > >>I booted to the CD drive with the Fedora 3 install CD. I installed
> > > >>Linux
> > > >>to hdb. I selected the GRUB boot loader.
> > > >>After install, on reboot I got the following message:
> > > >> "GRUB Hard Disk Error"
> > > >>Nothing else happens. Any ideas about what the error is and how to fix
> > > >>it? Has something happened to the MBR? Have I lost the XP
> > > >>installation?
> > > >>Thanks for any help.
> > > >
> > > >Sounds like there isn't a /boot partition within the first 1024 cylinders
> > > >on hdb.
> > > >
> > > >What is your partition setup?
> > > >
> > > >If my first guess is correct, might be easiest to just do a fresh install
> > > >to hdb and ensure that there is a minimum 100 meg /boot partition as the
> > > >first partition on hdb.
> > > >
> > > >Rich
> > >
> > > Would that affect being able to boot into hda?
> > > I used the automatic partitioning during the Fedora 3 install on hdb. How
> > > would I find what the partitions are since I can't boot into either
> > > operating system? I do have Knoppix so I could boot into it but don't
> > > know
> > > what to do next. Thanks.
> >
> >Automatic partitioning should have given you a 100MB /boot partition.
> >To see what you have, boot Knoppix.
> >
> >Boot: knoppix 2 (this gets you to a command
> >line, no time wasted in GUI)
> >$ cat /proc/partitions (quick look at all partitions
> >detected by Knoppix)
> >$ sudo /sbin/fdisk -l (more detailed look at all partitions)
>
> I checked the partitions. Here is what I got (assuming I type it right -
> printer was not connected):
> $cat /proc/partitions
> major minor #blocks name
> 3 0 40146624 hda
> 3 1 40146403 hda1
> 3 64 195360984 hdb
> 3 65 104391 hdb1
> 3 66 195254010 hdb2
>
>
> Here's what I got with $sudo /sbin/fdisk -l
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/hda1 * 1 4998 40146403+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
>
> /dev/hdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
> /dev/hdb2 14 243324 195254010 8e Linux LVM
> --------
> I ran the install again and tried to delete partitions with Disk Druid (to
> start over). I got an error message saying I could not delete it because
> it was part of the LVM Volume group ???
OK, you have the default Fedora partition scheme. 100MB for the Linux
/boot partition at the beginning of the disk, and the rest of the disk
in an LVM volume. This is really easy for the Linux install routine to
set up, and hell for anyone to troubleshoot.
> I needed to get access to the WinXP so I ran fixmbr (restore the master
> boot record) from a boot CD and was able to get back to WinXP. Now the
> second hd has Linux with no apparent way to access it.
>
> Could this a GRUB loader problem with large disks? I didn't do anything
> fancy - just all the defaults so am surprised at the road block.
I suspect that you told the Fedora Installer to put the GRUB booter on
the MBR of hda. This clobbered the Windows booter, but you were able
to recover that by restoring the MBR.
You can install the GRUB booter on hdb, and make hdb bootable by the
BIOS. (I think). This is a Rich Ernst trick. To start out at this,
boot the Fedora installation CD 1 and choose rescue mode.
There is also a way to edit the control file that is used by the WinXP
booter so that it will give you the choice of booting Windows or
Linux. I have done this, but don't have very good notes on what I
did. I can probably reconstruct the process, but not this weekend,
because I will be at the SCALE conference.
carl
--
carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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