Fedora 13Beta, Windows 7 & XP Multi-boot

[DrGlove]

First time post!
So I'm new to modifying Grub, and I've recently setup my laptop to contain all of Windows 7, XP, and the Fedora 13 beta on a single drive.
Grub is currently setup to boot to Fedora, and the Windows 7 boot loader, and from there I can boot to XP.
I'd like to set it up however, to have XP boot "directly" (i.e. bypass the 7 bootloader and go straight for the XP loader).
The current setup is:
Partition 1: 7 ntfs on sda1 (primary)
Partition 2: sda2 (extended containing sda5 XP ntfs)
Partition 3: sda3 ext4 containing /boot
Partition 4: Fedora on sda4 lvm2

I do have a second hdd, sdb, containing 1 NTFS partition for data storage.
Oh right, this is Grub legacy, not 2.

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/vg_nikux-lv_root
#          initrd /initrd-[generic-]version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora (2.6.33.3-85.fc13.i686.PAE)
        root (hd0,2)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.33.3-85.fc13.i686.PAE ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_nikux-lv_root rd_LVM_LV=vg_nikux/lv_root rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet
        initrd /initramfs-2.6.33.3-85.fc13.i686.PAE.img
title Fedora (2.6.33.1-24.fc13.i686.PAE)
        root (hd0,2)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.33.1-24.fc13.i686.PAE ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_nikux-lv_root rd_LVM_LV=vg_nikux/lv_root rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet
        initrd /initramfs-2.6.33.1-24.fc13.i686.PAE.img
title Windows
        root (hd0,0)
        makeactive
        chainloader +1

The Windows entry just boots the 7 boot loader.

fdisk -l /dev/sda output

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0e045244

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       11096    89128588+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2           11097       12952    14908320    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3           12953       13016      512000   83  Linux
/dev/sda4           13016       14594    12670976   8e  Linux LVM
/dev/sda5           11097       12952    14908288+   7  HPFS/NTFS

Just wondering what entries to add to my menu.lst to support booting the 7 bootloader and the XP bootloader!

Thanks!
-Glove

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Its not possible to add entries of both Windows OSes in this type of setup. You have set dual boot between Windows XP and 7 before setting multiboot with Linux.

Windows 7 has taken control of both Windows OSes. You can not boot other Windows OS directly now. Its like Primary and Slave OS setup. Slave OS don't have any boot configuration file and it depends on Primary OS for boot up. If you remove Primary OS, Slave will not boot up after that.

GRUB boot loader chainloads Windows OSes. It can't chainload Windows XP because it doesn't have any boot configuration file now.

[DrGlove]

Thanks for your reply!
I was afraid this might be the issue.
Is it possible to setup the XP installation such that it is independent of the 7 installation? (Maybe that's a question best answered in a different forum :P)

Perhaps I will look into NeoGrub...

[devils casper]

Is it possible to setup the XP installation such that it is independent of the 7 installation? (Maybe that's a question best answered in a different forum :P)

I have never done this but I am sure that it could be done easily. Hide existing installation (partition) of Windows OS and install Windows OS again in other partition. GRUB supports Partition Hide/Unhide.
I have never used NeoGRUB and know nothing about it.

[DrGlove]

I'll give that a shot then!
NeoGrub seems like a Winblows breed version of Grub, and handles loading NTLDR. I may just stick with a sub-bootloader for all the Windows stuff instead of going through all this hassle.

Thanks devil! You can close this is you like.

[devils casper]

There is one more option. A member of Linuxforums copied boot.ini, ntldr and a few other files from other machine to root drive of Windows OS. Windows OS boot up fine after that. I will search that thread and post back here soon.