Dual Booting Windows Vista and Fedora 11

[High_Lander]

I had a fresh copy of Windows Vista installed (original from the factory)- and I followed a document of dual booting - however I think I did some mistake or automatic skip of install Grub boot loader-

Now my fedora 11 is running smoothly but windows vista is gone or does not boot - I don't have any boot disks- they give examples having floppy disk a boot disk- my laptop doesn't have floppy drive- I guess I could manage in cd or flash drive.

I see my computer's config in fedora desktop as
computer:///250%20GB%20ATA%20WDC%20WD2500BEVS-6.drive
computer:///250%20GB%20ATA%20WDC%20WD2500BEVS-6-1.drive
computer:///PIONEER%20DVDRW%20%20DR-KD08HB.drive
computer:///root.link

I noticed that the partition NTFS still exists and it has not been erased. I did install linux on hda5 since hda1 was partitioned with NTFS

Is there any manual and precaution to be taken while doing the same dual boot system ?

Or is it possible to have dual boot with the present config- although i am ready to install fresh window vista and fedora as my dual booting systems...

[jayd512]

Fedora has this habit of not seeing other OS's for a GRUB setup when installing it.
Not a major problem.
You'll need to edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst.
Open a terminal, and using an editor of your choice, add the following to your menu.lst:

title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

[High_Lander]

I wonder what could be the reason? The following script on menu.lst, is not enough to boot Windows Vista- however- the fedora is booting smoothly. Thank you for any suggestion in advance-


[root@localhost grub]# cat menu.lst
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,2)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i686.PAE)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i686.PAE ro root=/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i686.PAE.img
title Other
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

# rootnoverify (hd0,0)
# chainloader +1

Fedora has this habit of not seeing other OS's for a GRUB setup when installing it.
Not a major problem.
You'll need to edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst.
Open a terminal, and using an editor of your choice, add the following to your menu.lst:

title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

[devils casper]

Boot up Fedora and execute this in Terminal :

su -
/sbin/fdisk -l

Post output here.

* Its small L in fdisk -l.

[High_Lander]

[root@localhost sbin]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes:
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1ddd1ddc

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 16119 129474144 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 28868 30401 12321855 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 * 16119 16145 204800 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 16146 28867 102189465 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 16146 28867 102189056 8e Linux LVM

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/dm-0: 99.4 GB, 99421782016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12087 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-1: 5217 MB, 5217714176 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 634 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Boot up Fedora and execute this in Terminal :

su -
/sbin/fdisk -l

Post output here.

* Its small L in fdisk -l.

[devils casper]

Open grub.conf file with root privileges.

su -
nano /boot/grub/grub.conf

Put # sign before hiddenmenu line.

default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
# hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i686.PAE)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i686.PAE ro root=/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i686.PAE.img
title Other
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

Press Ctrl+X, Y and hit Enter key to save file. Reboot machine.
Select Other title in GRUB Menu and post error message here, if any.

[High_Lander]

I thank you so much- The modified code u suggested here at the forum works great.

Later

[devils casper]

Glad to help you !

Change Other with whatever you like in grub.conf file.

title Other

title Windows OS

You can set Windows OS to boot up by default by setting default value to 1.

default=1