Find the answer to your Linux question:
Results 1 to 5 of 5
Hello everyone OK, here's my setup:- HDD 1: 190GB SATA-II (NTFS/WinXP Home SP2) HDD 2: 180GB PATA/UDMA 5 (Linux) So I formatted HDD 2/installed FC4. Problem is, unless the SATA ...
  1. 03-07-2006 #1
    DoomUK
    DoomUK is offline
    Just Joined!
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    8

    Problems with dual HDD's: Fedora Core 4 + WinXP

    Hello everyone

    OK, here's my setup:-

    HDD 1: 190GB SATA-II (NTFS/WinXP Home SP2)
    HDD 2: 180GB PATA/UDMA 5 (Linux)

    So I formatted HDD 2/installed FC4. Problem is, unless the SATA drive is disabled in BIOS (or indeed unplugged) the GRUB bootloader doesn't execute after installation. I can set to boot from the PATA drive first in BIOS, but on selecting WinXP from the bootloader's list, Windows will not boot...

    Are there known isues with SATA/SATA-II in Fedora Core 4? Is it worth trying another distro when the problem could lie elsewhere; is it worth reformatting HDD 1/reinstalling Windows* and starting from scratch?

    Thanks in advance.

    *Yes, I installed Windows first to begin with BTW
    Reply With Quote Reply With Quote
  2. 03-08-2006 #2
    Roxoff
    Roxoff is offline
    Trusted Penguin Roxoff's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Nottingham, England
    Posts
    3,392
    Some SATA drives are still not detected first time through. It looks like your boot loader has been installed on the boot partition of /dev/hda, which probably means that FC4 didn't detect the drive at install time.

    If you can see both drives from FC4, then a fix may be as simple as installing grub on the boot sector of the primary drive (/dev/sda). If not, then you need to reinstall FC4 with both drives visible. To do this, use the 'linux expert' command when booting from the CD, and making sure that the boot loader goes onto the SATA disk's boot sector.
    Linux user #126863 - see http://linuxcounter.net/
    Reply With Quote Reply With Quote
  3. 03-08-2006 #3
    DoomUK
    DoomUK is offline
    Just Joined!
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    8
    Thankyou for your reply.

    I can indeed see the SATA drive in FC4, although during installation it refused to be recognised...

    So, if yourself or someone else could walk me through reinstalling GRUB on my primary HDD/MBR, I'd be eternally gratefull .
    Reply With Quote Reply With Quote
  4. 03-08-2006 #4
    Roxoff
    Roxoff is offline
    Trusted Penguin Roxoff's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Nottingham, England
    Posts
    3,392
    The command to use is 'grub-install'. May be as simple as running:

    Code:
    grub-install /dev/sda
    as root, but check the manpage first ('man grub-install').
    Linux user #126863 - see http://linuxcounter.net/
    Reply With Quote Reply With Quote
  5. 03-08-2006 #5
    DoomUK
    DoomUK is offline
    Just Joined!
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    8
    Quote Originally Posted by Roxoff

    Code:
    grub-install /dev/sda
    OK, conffesionately I ran this straight off and now I'm left unable to boot into Windows. As Sod's Law states my WinXP setup CD-ROM is on the blink (refuses to load up after the 'inspecting your hardware config' maeeasge displays), thus I cannot run the "fdisk/mbr" command...

    Any way in Hell that I can 'uninstall' GRUB without any access to Windows?

    Thanks.

    **UPDATE**: Thankfully I got the Win setup disk to work.

    Back to the original problem however, GRUB does not want to recognise my SATA it seems...
    Reply With Quote Reply With Quote
« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

Forum Rules