Dual Boot Using NTLoader

[Fermulator]

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Hello!

Well, I'm coming back to Linux at this point, and attempting to get such things as multi boot to work.
I'd like to MILTI boot Windows XP, DOS, Fedora3, Slackware, FreeBSD, and Mandrake.

But to keep this simpler, let's only speak of Windows XP and Fedora (As this is what i'm currently stuck on!)

Firstly, I'm following TO THE LETTER the instructions from the following site.
http://www.astahost.com/lite/index.php/t1510.html
(I've looked around at other places, and they all have roughly the same instructions)....and it "SEEMS" to work during the process, but it doesn't.

So the PROBLEM:
When attempting to boot Fedora from the NTLoader, I recieve the following "message': "GRUB _" (The underscore represents a blinking cursor thing)...

My Hardware Setup:
sdaa/sdab are TWO 160GB SATA Drives on Raid 0.
This Raid array contains my windows XP OS. It works fine by booting "SCSI" in the BIOS.

I have a second drive, hda. It's a 40GB IDE drive.
Ok.
During the fedora install i'm configuring the 40GB as follows.

hda1: 100MB for '/boot' (ext3)
hda2: 10000MB for '/' (ext3)
hda3: 1000MB for SWAP

I tell the GRUB loader to install onto the BOOT partition, NOT the MBR
(As my goal is NOT to overwrite the MBR on this drive....)

After the install, to verify...
When running "Fdisk -l -u /dev/hda", it does indeed agree that hda1 is active and able to boot (indicated by the "*") ....


SIDE NOTE:
IF: During the Fedora install, I install GRUB onto the MBR, I can boot fine into Linux using "Boot 1st Device = HD0" in the BIOS.
If i repeat the steps to boot using the NT loader, it results in the same "GRUB" message....

I hope I've provided enough information so that hopefully someone has some ideas for me!
If not let me know and i'll update with the requested information.

I'm really stuck and can't figure out why I'd be receiving such an error when i'm quite certain I'm doing this write!

Thank you very much!

[jimslyp69]

Well, I've recently done this operation at college, but using LILO instead of GRUB. I can't remeber it letter for letter but i shall endeavour to get my notes on Wednesday and post them here. ps At college we used RH 7.2, at home i used RH9 and that just automatically dual booted without a any configuration.

[Fermulator]

Thanx for the reply!

Well I'm not using GRUB or LILO for the "Dual Boot"...
I'm trying to use NT Loader to do all the "Milti Booting".
The main reason: WindowsXP shall be my primary OS, so if something goes wrong with another OS, it won't affect XP.


Has any1 else seen the error described above?

I really am stuck and wish I could get past this.

[harley51]

This is what I did your system sounds like it's setup like mine. With the grub cursor flashing it sounds like the system can't find grub you might want to do a reload of Fedora it's much easier than trying to fix it.

Duel booting using XP boot manager (My Preference. I don't like third party boot managers.)

Use your rescue CD to boot to Fedora.
Run the command dd if=/dev/hda5 of=boot.lnx bs=512 count=1
If hda5 is Not your boot partition, change it as appropriate. Type: df then determine which hda#
is associated with your /boot partition. A file named boot.lnx should now have been created
in the root's home directory or where ever you told it to be. Do an ls -l boot.lnx to confirm this.
Mount your floppy drive insert a formatted dos diskette and use the command mcopy boot.lnx a:
Or if your internet is up and running email it to yourself. Now reboot and go to Windows XP.
A: Copy boot.lnx C:\ (It will land it in C:\ root.) Double click your boot.ini file and add one line at
the end it should read c:\boot.lnx="Fedora Core 2". Then save it. When you reboot your XP boot
manager will come up when you chose Fedora it jumps to the Grub Boot manager on your second
drive. Reboot to Fedora.

[Fermulator]

Hi Thanx for the reply.

Does the NAME of the "boot.lnx" actually have an effect?
I've been using "linux.img"...

Is is probobally my 4th time reloading fedora to try to get this to work. And the instructions you just gave me is exactly what i've done every time.....

I read somewhere that this problem COULD be caused by the boot sectore being more than 8GB away from the first sector of the hard drive?..some BIOS restraint...but even so, my boot partition is the FIRST partition...so i don't see how that could cause it.

ALSO:
Should I run "chroot /mnt/system" after entering Recovery mode ?...
That's what i've been doing. ... could this affect it?

[Fermulator]

Alright.....

So.
I've tried re-installing AGAIN.

This time leaving nearly everything 'default'.

I let Fedora install on the FIRST partition: hda1 . The entire system "/".
Swap is on hda2.

HOWEVER: I still DO NOT want fedora to overwrite the MBR< so i had it install on the first sectore of the boot partition (which is hda1).

And so I went through the entire process again..but THIS time, upon selecting Linux from the NT Loader screen..i received
"GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB" in the upper left portion of the screen.

What is the problem here? I don't understand why this is so difficult, as it seems these 'instructions' work for nearly everyone else....

Then i proceeded to boot the Rescue CD.
I edited the /etc/Grub.conf file. It showed in to places (hd0, 0) as the splash screen and the boot partition. So i figured, well, mine is "hda,1"...

WHAT should i change this to?
should it be hd0,1 or hda,1?

[Auxin]

OK newbie warning here

but afaik NTLoader cant detect any *nix distro (what can I say, Microsoft's stubborn) you absolutely need to have GRUB/LILO (any other 3rd party bootloader) on the MBR.

But I could be wrong here.

Cheers,
Auxin

[Fermulator]

I'm pretty sure it can load "Images" of boot sectors or something like that.

Which is what is done during the "dd" command correct?...

[Fermulator]

So does no one else have this issue or heard of the issue?

Seeing GRUB with black screen?