sk4425

I have been trying to install a dual boot set-up of fedora core 6 and windows xp professional, but have come across many problems and I am now stuck as to what to do!

The first thing I did was to install Windows. When partioning, I left 10GB of free space at the start of my hard drive for fedora, and used the rest for Windows.. It installed fine, and was working perfectly.

Then I installed fedora in the free space I had left. I chose to install GRUB on the MBR, and the fedora setup automatically configured it to load the fedora and windows partitions.

After installing fedora, I could boot into fedora fine, but when attempting to boot into windows I got an error message that hal.dll was missing or corrupt. I found a post (http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ins...t-missing.html) that offered a solution to this problem, so thought I'd try and do what it says.

However, when booting from the Windows XP cd it just gave me a blank screen. Again I found a post concerning this problem (http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic73477.html). but the solution of hiding the fedora partition didn't work!

The only idea I have is to put the windows partition at the start of the drive (the first partition) as this may allow the CD to boot. But I am not sure if this will help and will involve wiping the whole hard drive and starting again! Is this the best plan, or is there an alternative that I have overlooked?

Thanks in advance.

devils casper

Hi sk4425,

Welcome to the LinuxForums.

if you have Floppy drive, download Windows 98 Bootable Floppy from
www.bootdisk.com and boot up from Floppy. execute 'fdisk /mbr'. this command will remove GRUB from MBR. check if Windows boots up on reboot. if windows doesn't boot up, try Windows Installation CD to fix it. Installation CD will work after removing GRUB through Bootable Floppy.




Casper

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sk4425

Hi devils_casper, thanks for such a quick response!

I don't have a floppy disk drive and I am on fedora, so can't run the exe files on bootdisk.com. However I downloaded the Win98 boot disk img file under "Non-Windows Based Image Files W/ImageApp". Can I simply burn this image to a CD, or is it not that simple? (it is a .img file)

devils casper

you can use SuperGRUB CD. download .iso image and burn it to CD. boot from CD and remove GRUB. Windows Installation CD will work after that. its easy to re-install GRUB after fixing Windows.

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sk4425

Thanks again! I followed your instructions to remove grub but the windows cd is still not loading. I even tryed hiding the linux partitions at the same time, but still just a blank screen!

Any other suggestions?

devils casper

thats strange. Windows Installation CD should work after removing GRUB.
what does machine display on booting up from Harddisk now?

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sk4425

It displays the windows error message that hal.dll is missing or corrupt, so the superGRUB cd has changed the MBR to boot windows directly.

devils casper

now Problem is in Windows only. SuperGRUB CD did its job. check your Windows Installation CD in other machine.

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sk4425

The CD worked fine when I installed Windows originally. But, i will check on a different computer when I can.

Do you think it could be a problem related to the location of my Windows partition? (It is not the first on the disk). I read somewhere that Windows can have problems when not on the first partition.

devils casper

it could be the problem. i suggest you to recover data from windows, if any and re-install it.

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