dual boot fc2 and w2k

[duffman1429]

i have the following setup:

w2k on a 34GB SCSI drive
fc2 on a 70GB IDE drive
the 70GB drive is partitioned into a 2GB /swap, 13GB /root (ext3), and the rest is vfat
i have a 100MB /boot (ext3) partition at the front of the SCSI drive

i followed the tutorial found here: http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux...w2k-HOWTO.html

when i start the machine, i get the option of going to windows or linux. the windows choice boots fine. however, when i try to boot linux, i get a GRUB notification comes up and nothing happens. i have to restart the machine. does anyone have any ideas why this is happening? thanks a ton for your help.

-duffman

[daemonOS]

Have you tried to boot with the floppy disk you made? Did you change the drive letter to fit your needs. Also it is ok to leave it default and write to the MBR. Things are not like they used to be. Me I use lilo and let it act as my ntldr. Also did you copy it into the win dir and type in linux to the
boot.ini? You could all ways post the grub config file here and let us take a look.

[duffman1429]

i can boot into safe mode with the install cd. that is how i was able to create the linux.bin file. i never created a floppy, since i had a shared partition, i just wrote the linux.bin file to there. i put it in c:\, not in the win directory, thats not my problem. when i choose the option at startup to boot into linux, i get a black screen with GRUB in the top left corner and a blinking cursor. here is what my grub config looks like. i haven't edited it at all:

# 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 (hd1,2)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdd1
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda3
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.6.5-1.358smp)
root (hd1,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358smp ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.358smp.img
title Fedora Core-up (2.6.5-1.35
root (hd1,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,1)
chainloader +1

---
about installing grub, or lilo, to the mbr. i thought that that was supposed to cause all sorts of problems with w2k and wxp. if i do install it to the mbr, instead of a separate /boot partition, what do i have to do to get windows to run again?

thanks so much for your help so far.

-duffman

[daemonOS]

what do i have to do to get windows to run again?

humm i thought you said it would boot to windows. OK, Grub is like it should be. Now we can change it to mbr but lets do this right. You need to make a windows 98 floppy. Don't worry you can get one here. Boot w/the boot disk in the floppy and fdisk /mbr. That should get windows up and running just fine. Now go a head and make sure SP4 w/all other updates are installed. I would sugest FC3 unless you have a ATI card. FC3 has more support. Now boot FC2/3 which ever you like to and just install it.

now if you would like to add to the ntldr then do this.

When partitioning just do /Home /Usr /Swap. You can add more. If you would like to do more then this would be great
/, <-- as boot /Home /Usr /Swap /Var /tmp /(and if you like add servers here and /here)
Install finished create a boot disk.. if you need to know how then go here
Now boot w/the boot disk and lets say it hda2 lets do this

dd if=/dev/hda2 of=boot.lnx bs=512 count=1

you can use df and view /boot. do ls -l and verify boot.lnx is in the roots home dir.
now mcopy boot.lnx a: to copy the file and shutdown -r now.
after reboot. copy it to C:\ as you did. edit the boot.ini and add c:\boot.lnx="Fendora Core 2 or 3". Make sure you save it!
I hope this helps some.

[duffman1429]

Quote:
what do i have to do to get windows to run again?
humm i thought you said it would boot to windows.

i can currently boot to windows. my question was: if i install my boot loader into the MBR, how would i then get Windows to boot? right now, my boot loader is in a boot partition.

the only difference i can see in the instructions you give me and what i have done is that i installed GRUB on my /boot partition. you are telling me to put it on the / (root) partition, correct? does this make much of a difference? i will try re-installing fc2 without a boot partition and putting the boot loader in the root partition. let me know if you can think of anything else.

-duffman

[daemonOS]

Grub will give you a option to boot to windows. The only difference by adding to the boot.ini is the ntldr (boot for windows) will be able to launch Grub/Lilo or other. If you use Grub/Lilo as the boot ldr on the MBR it will auto detect windows and other partitions you have. /(is root and every thing else) you can seperate root from boot but I do not see the point unless you a tight security freak or using it in work/network env.
take a look here and here

[duffman1429]

hmm... perhaps i will try intsalling grub to the mbr if i can't get anything else to work. i took a look at whittler's thread here, and i did what he said worked for him, but i still have the same problem he does. supposing i do put GRUB on the MBR, if it won't load windows, do you know a good way to get it configured properly? thanks again for all your help.

-duffman

[daemonOS]

Well make a boot disk for windows. Copy the Ntldr, Ntdetect.com and the boot.ini. You can then boot by a floppy in case of the worst. Open C:\ and just copy those to a floppy disk.

[daemonOS]

Oh and sorry that did not help you question did it. Well you can always (supposing it does not detect windows) open the Grub/Lilo config file and edit it your self using vi or other. All you would do is make sure it is placed were you want it ie: MBR or mnt/windows (first partition of your hard disk) or in your last case /boot. I assume your windows is /sda1 but I could be wrong.

[duffman1429]

i got my stuff working! i can now boot windows from grub. woohoo! thanks for all the help.

-duffman