fresh install for dual boot with winxp : grub hangs

[Phil Schaffner]

On Wed, 2004-06-30 at 02:15 -0700, Hans Horn wrote:
> Dear all,
>  
> I'm trying to install fedora2 on a HP AMD64 box with winxp factory-
> installed.
> I've got two disks, with xp installed on the first one.
>  
> after the reboot following the fedora install on the 2nd disk, all I
> get is: GRUB
>  
> using 'linux rescue' I tried to modify grub.conf with no success.
>  
> here's what fdisk tells me:
>  
> fdisk /dev/hda
> /dev/hda    hda1    hp-recovery
>             hda2    NTFS (XP boot)
>  
> fdisk /dev/hdd
> /dev/hdd    hdd1    swap
>             hda3    ext3 (Linux boot)

Did you mean hdd3?  hdd2?  What else is on hdd? Do you have /boot and /
or is everything but swap on one partition.
 
> device.map says:
>  
> hd0    /dev/hda
> hd1    /dev/hdd

This seems to be a rather strange setup and may be confusing grub.
Usually you would want your hard disk as the master on the controller
rather than the slave, or better yet the only thing on the controller
for performance reasons.  What is on the slave for the first IDE
contoller and the master for the second?  I'd try changing the hardware
setup so the second disk is the master on the second controller, booting
in rescue mode, and fixing /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/grub.conf to match.
The BIOS hard disk mode may also be a factor.

> has anybody got a glue how grub.conf is supposed to look like for grub
> to work on my system.

Would help to first see what you've got now.  Where did you install
grub, the MBR or the boot partition?

> right now I'm pretty much dead in the water - can't boot into any OS!

I suspect it is recoverable, but you need to clarify and provide correct
current grub.conf and disk/partition information.

Phil