Dual Boot, Grub, FC3-WinXpSP2, 2 drives. No go.

[Nat Gross]

Robert Locke wrote:

>On Mon, 2005-02-28 at 14:06 -0500, Nat Gross wrote:
>  
>
>>Robert Locke wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>On Mon, 2005-02-28 at 13:18 -0500, Nat Gross wrote:
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Hi;
>>>>I installed FC3 on a WinXP-sp2 system, whose c: drive was NOT being used 
>>>>(for real), or so I thought. And gave the entire drive, hda, to FC3. I 
>>>>reasoned that since my winXP booted into drive E:, the second drive, 
>>>>hdb, Grub would have no issues with booting Windows. However, although 
>>>>it boots FC3 nicely, when I elect to boot xp, it displays 'rootnoverify 
>>>>(hd1,0) chainloader +1' and stops. Due to the partioning of hdb (as 
>>>>listed below), I have tried hd1,1 as well, with the same results.
>>>>The hardware is as follows:
>>>>Dell Intel 1.6ghz, 768 meg ram, 2 hard drives, 20gig and 60gig.
>>>>Disk info:
>>>>hda:
>>>>hda1 1-33,     /boot, 259meg, ext3.
>>>>hda2 34-164 swap, 1 gig
>>>>hda3 165-2498, /, 18gig, ext3.
>>>>
>>>>hdb:
>>>>hdb1 1-3633, 28.4gig, fa32. (not mounted, or touched with Linux.)
>>>>hdb2 3634-7299,28.7gig, Extended. ( ditto)
>>>>hdb5 3634-7299,28.7gig,ntfs. (don't know why its listed twice. whatever.)
>>>>
>>>>The /boot/grub/grub.conf:
>>>># NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
>>>>#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
>>>>#          root (hd0,0)
>>>>#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3
>>>>#          initrd /initrd-version.img
>>>>#boot=/dev/hda
>>>>default=0
>>>>timeout=5
>>>>splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
>>>>hiddenmenu
>>>>password --md5 blah
>>>>title Fedora Core (2.6.9-1.667)
>>>>   root (hd0,0)
>>>>   kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
>>>>   initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img
>>>>title WinXP
>>>>   rootnoverify (hd1,1) 
>>>>   chainloader +1
>>>>=========================
>>>>As noted above, I also tried     rootnoverify (hd1,0) .
>>>>
>>>>Thank you
>>>>-nat
>>>>
>>>>   
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>You might want to try hdb1,4 on the rootnoverify line.
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>I get: Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by bios.
>>
>>    
>>
>>>My rationale is the idea that your machine was booting from drive "e".
>>>Also note that the fdisk output of hdb5 being the ntfs based partition
>>>while hdb1 is the FAT32.
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>The reason for this is that once upon a time, Win did in fact use drive 
>>C: as its home drive, and the second drive was 'extra'. Then one day, 
>>that install of win crashed and burned and cost me two weeks, (and I 
>>switched to Linux on my other machine), so when I re-installed Win, I 
>>used my second drive as the main guy, and just left drive C:, waiting 
>>for Linux.... And here I am.
>>
>>    
>>
>>>By the way, the hd nomenclature is "drive number","partition number" and
>>>both start counting from zero.  So your first partition would be hd1,0
>>>the FAT partition and hd1,4 would be the ntfs partition.  hd1,1 does not
>>>actually hold any data, it is an artifact of decisions that MBR
>>>partition tables can only define four partitions.  So turn one in to an
>>>extended partition that can then be divvied up into additional logical
>>>partitions.
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>It's interesting that Grub automatically detected the second drive 
>>(although the first one had been formatted).
>>I'm wondering if I need to make the ntfs partition 'bootable'. If so, where.
>>Thank you much.
>>-nat
>>ps. To Paul. Your suggestion is (as you say) last resort.  Hope I can 
>>get it to boot into Win, even from cd, since FC will likely be the main 
>>os on this machine as well. (My other machine, is FC3 only.)
>>
>>    
>>
>>>HTH,
>>>
>>>--Rob
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>
>I guess you need to define which "partition" contains the "WINDOWS"
>directory.  That is the one that you would be "booting" from.  So is
>that on hdb1 or hdb5.....
>
>But I must admit that my Windows boot process knowledge is getting
>mighty rusty, now that I use VMWare to run it.
>
>As I recall, the Windows bootloader is mighty cheesy....  It simply
>pointed to the first sector of the "active" partition....  I wonder if
>playing with hide and unhide in grub might help.  Can you hide a whole
>drive or just a partition, haven't had to do one myself?  But that way
>you might be able to allow Windows to think it is the only drive again
>which is perhaps what it is expecting?  Windows may be trying to
>interpret the first drive's partition table and getting itself confused
>as it tried to boot....
>  
>
Grub intercepts the boot.

>That is pretty much my extent of help.... Perhaps others can provide
>more fruit...
>
>--Rob
>
>  
>
Thank you much, every iota of help is valuable.
-nat