Problems with dual boot system

[Stuart Sears]

On Friday 05 Nov 2004 23:02, Sean  McGee wrote:
> I have a 2 hard drive system with one hard drive with windows and one with
> linux. i installed linux (fedora Core 2) to the second one yesterday and
> the installation went fine. i set the boot loader to the linux hard drive
> as i didnt want to touch my widows HD.
> I then i tried rebooting and it just booted linux,
Did it give you any options at all? Did you get the normal blue grub screen 
with a countdown at the bottom?
if so you probably just need to edit your bootloader configuration file.
can you post the contents of /boot/grub/grub.conf
and the output of fdisk -l ?
> so i figured it was probably just an erorr with the boot 
> priorities so i changed the #1 HD to the HD with linux so it would boot
> before the linux one. Well it worked, sort of. now when i boot my PC with
> the linux hard drive it just brings up a black screen with text in the top
> left corner that says "GRUB..." i know this is the name of the bootloader
> but i dont know what it is doing.
this is the first stage bootloader, which is now unable to find its second 
stage (normally under /boot) because you have moved your disks around
> it doesnt respond to any keyboard or 
> mouse input, i have to restart the computer. I reinstalled linux
> (completely reformated the HD) thinking that that just might have been the
> problem, a bad install, but that didnt work either. i dont know what to do.
> please help...
ah, so you no longer have a bootable system?
is your windows system still there?
what happens if you swap your disks back to the way they were originally?
does windows still boot?

*** WARNING***
before you do anything else I am suggesting - if you can back up any critical 
data from your windows installation it would be a _very_ good idea. We are 
about to mess with your system boot process, and while it should be harmless, 
this is never guaranteed and typos could render system totally unbootable...
also, if you have a boot floppy or CD for Windows it could be helpful to 
reverse what we are about to do.
*****
if you boot from your FC2 CD1 and type 'linux rescue' <enter>, does it 
successfully mount your existing linux system partitions?
(type df -h at the console prompt when it has finished - it should show a lot 
of partitions/filesystems mounted in directories under /mnt/sysimage)
if so, once the linux rescue phase has completed, try this:
{the # represents your shell prompt)
# chroot /mnt/sysimage
(should 'log' you into your existing on-disk system)
# /sbin/grub-install /dev/hda
(re-install your first-stage bootloader onto the master boot record of your 
bootable disk assuming that your main bootable disk is your IDE primary 
master drive. This is incorrect if you have a SCSI-based system)
# exit
to get out of the chroot
# exit
to exit and reboot...

what happens?

Stuart
-- 
Stuart Sears RHCE, RHCX
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur