Dual boot XP/Fedora newbie questions

[NaStYJoSe]

Hey I'm having problems getting this setup to work. I have my XP partition up and running fine. I went to install on the empty space I eft for Fedora(20GBs) and it installed but I don't know how to get it to boot up. I installed Grub onto the "first sector of the boot partition" and my computer automatically boots into XP. I did a search and tried adding this line to my Windows MBR "c:\boot.lnx="RedHat Fedora Core 3 Project" but it just gave me an error when I tried to boot Fedora. This is my first time using Linux so some help would be very much appreciated. Thanks for any help!

[prosen]

you have to first create the boot.lnx file.

in Linux, do the following :
$ su
<root password>
# dd if=/dev/hda* bs=512 count=1 of=boot.lnx

where /dev/hda* is your boot partition ( usually 100 MB size).

do a "/sbin/fdisk -l" to find out which is your boot partition if u dont know already.
a file boot.lnx will be created in your working directory. copy that file to
the primary partition of your HDD (usually drive C:\ of Windows ). The rest I think you have done already, u appended tht ' C:\boot.lnx="RedHat Fedora Core 3 Project" ' line in your C:\boot.ini file rite ??

[andrewdodd13]

to be able to use c:\boot.lnx = "Fedora" you have to:

dd if=/dev/hdaX of=/mnt/hdaY/boot.lnx count=1 bs=512

[where X=your boot partition and Y=your windows partition] from a rescue disk.
personally i find it much easier to install grub into the MBR and set windows as default if required

[NaStYJoSe]

Thanks for the replys. What I tried was booting up using the 'linux rescue' command on the Fedora disk. Then I tried what you said and it didn't work. The commands weren't valid or something. What should I do? Sorry for being such a noob..

[prosen]

did u do "chroot /mnt/sysimage" first after u logged in rescue mode ???
You shud do that 1st before anything else. Then try the "dd" part.

if you are unable to do this from linux, you can also do it from windows.
Refer to this wonderful utility called Bootpart :
http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm

This will detect your linux partitions from windows, and will also show them.
It will also make a boot.lnx file ( this is actually an image of the 1st block of your /boot ) and update the C:\boot.ini file accordingly for you. Refer to the online manual for details.

[NaStYJoSe]

Alright here's an update for you guys. When I try this

in Linux, do the following :
$ su
<root password>
# dd if=/dev/hda* bs=512 count=1 of=boot.lnx

I get this message
1+0 records in
1+0 records out

When I do this

dd if=/dev/hdaX of=/mnt/hdaY/boot.lnx count=1 bs=512

It says "no such file or directory"

And if I try to enter Fedora on the boot screen it says "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or currupt: <windows root>\system32\hal.dll"

My XP partition still works fine. Any idea what I did wrong?

[NaStYJoSe]

I found this guide that might help. I'm going to try it and I'll report back to you. Thanks for all your help. http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/topic-33943.html


edit: This guide solved the problem.