Status of XP Dual Boot Problem

John DeDourek dedourek at unb.ca
Thu Nov 4 18:30:47 UTC 2004


Jonathan Berry wrote:

> Does anyone know what it takes to cause this bug?
> Is it related to upgrading from FC1?
> Only when you install FC2 on the same HD as Windows?
> Only if you use the installer to change the partitioning?
> Some combination of these?

See my previous post for the long exlanation.  The short
explanation is that the partition table is written with
the wrong geometry and wrong partition starts in cyl,head,sector
(but correct in block numbers) in some cases.

This would happen if ALL of the following are true:
--the install writes the partition table
--the partition table is written by a utility or component
   which obtains the geometry from /proc
--the install is being run under a 2.6 kernel that puts
   the IDE/ATA geometry instead of the BIOS geometry in
   the "standard place" in /proc.  (Remember that the
   install runs under a Linux kernel; e.g. the Fedora
   2 ISO CD/Rom runs the install under a 2.6 kernel. And
   the install kernel of Fedora 2 IS one of them that puts
   the "wrong" geometry in /proc)

Apparently on some systems Windows XP will boot with bad
geometry in the partition table, but won't on others.
Linux doesn't care about the geometry in the partition table.




More information about the fedora-list mailing list