FC2 & dual boot.. problem still there :(

[Radu Cornea]

Cormac Long wrote:
> Folks,
>    I can confirm that the official FC2 does indeed have the same problem 
> as previously reported with the test releases.
> 
> I got the ISOs yesterday from a Swiss mirror and installed on my dual 
> boot Acer Aspire 1300 laptop.. I did a fresh install, preserving my 
> existing home partition and leaving my existing XP partition for a dual 
> boot.. same thing I've done for ages right back to the first RH usage of 
> Grub... I have the real thing and not one of the older test releases.
> 
> During the initial install stages, if I recall as the disk druid bit was 
> kicking in.. I was prompted regarding the LBA mode.. so I rebooted the 
> laptop to force enable it.. my bios has no such option.. all it lets me 
> do is set the time and boot order. So I rebooted and just ignored the 
> warning.
> 
> It installed fine.. worked a treat.. but then when I tried to boot XP, 
> it just hung on the grub console.. I tried the variations of suggested 
> configurations for /etc/grub.conf.. adding makeactive etc.. made no 
> difference, even after grub-install attempts.
> 
> I also used the XP cd to get a Windows recovery console prompt and ran 
> fixmbr and fixboot and also tried BOOTCFG /rebuild.. but still a reboot 
> just hung the XP boot... this was odd, because usually these commands 
> overwrite grub, making the system a windows only boot, requiring a linux 
> rescue from RH/FC CD to re-install grub in the MBR.
> 
> So it appears the issue is still there and will be the cause of much 
> flame.. fearing I might have had a test release, I confirmed with the 
> MD5SUMS again.. it is the official release that I got... the issue still 
> exists!
> 
> On the recovery front, I booted from Knoppix as it has native NTFS 
> enabled and was able to mount the existing windows NTFS partition.. its 
> still there and seems intact.. so I was able to copy off files and FTP 
> to another machine etc in prep for a new Windows install.. trouble is 
> that I think if I do a clean install of Windows and then a linux rescue 
> to restore grub, that the problem will still be there... I'll end up 
> unable to boot the XP partition.
> 
> So it was a downer!.. and I realise that windows is bad and evil.. but I 
> need to to have dual boots and I'm sure that many others out there are 
> also in this boat.
> 
> Below are outputs from the fdisk -l command and the existing grub.conf 
> file for anyone who is interested.
> 
>     title Fedora Core (2.6.5-1.358)
>             root (hd0,0)
>             kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
>             initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img
>     title Windows XP
>             rootnoverify (hd0,1)
>             makeactive
>             chainloader +1
> 
> 
>     [root at dhcp-145 cormac]# fdisk -l
> 
>     Disk /dev/hda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
>     16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 58140 cylinders
>     Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
> 
>        Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>     /dev/hda1               1         210      105808+  83  Linux
>     /dev/hda2   *         211       31425    15732360    7  HPFS/NTFS
>     /dev/hda3           31426       39750     4195800   83  Linux
>     /dev/hda4           39751       58140     9268560    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
>     /dev/hda5           39751       41835     1050808+  82  Linux swap
>     /dev/hda6           41836       58140     8217688+  83  Linux
> 
> 
> Regards,
>    Cormac
> 

I had the same problem and found a way to restore the original partition 
table using fdisk. In short, I completely wiped out the mbr and 
recreated it from scratch using the original disk geometry. I posted 
more detailed information on fedora-test-list:

http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2004-May/msg02114.html

I hope it helps,

--
Radu