F7-x86-64 Stopped Booting - GRUB Issue - Fixed!

Raymond C. Rodgers rh at bbnk.dhs.org
Wed Oct 10 05:34:54 UTC 2007


Jacques B. wrote:
> Check out
> http://www.pmg.lcs.mit.edu/~chandra/install/install_dualboot.html
>
> Go down to section 7 (although this may only apply to Lilo so not
> sure) and see if that sounds familiar.
>
> Also I found the following at
> http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html
>
> "# When I select Linux from the boot menu, I get a frozen "GRUB" (or
> an "L" in the case of LILO)
> # Make sure you created the linux.bin file correctly with the dd
> command. If you think you ran the command correctly, the problem may
> be that your /boot partition is beyond cylinder 1024 and your BIOS
> can't reach it. At system startup, the Windows boot loader lists the
> choices from boot.ini. When you select Linux, the boot loader then
> loads the 512-byte linux.bin file, and then BIOS tries to access the
> /boot partition to run GRUB. Some BIOS implementations can only
> address the first 1024 cylinders of a hard drive, which corresponds to
> ~8.5 GB. How do you fix this? Create your /boot partition before
> cylinder 1024; i.e. before ~8.5 GB."
>
> Does this scenario sound familiar?  Did you have to create a linux.bin
> file or a BOOTSECT.LNX  file on your Windows box?  If it, it sounds
> like a kernel update may require that you rebuild either applicable
> file in order for it to work again.
>
> Having said that you are getting the grub prompt so it would appear
> that the Windows boot loader is pointing to the right place for your
> grub boot loader.  Which brings us back to a likely grub.conf
> configuration problem.  But before suggesting how to trouble shoot
> that I'd like to make sure that what I suspect is happening (as per
> previous posting) is indeed happening.
>
>   
The solution was as I had originally guessed: I needed to make a new 
copy of the boot sector, and place it [in a file] on my Windows XP boot 
partition for NTLDR via boot.ini to load and use. Once I did that, 
Fedora booted just fine. I immediately did another yum update, and saw 
yet another new kernel come down the pipe, so I made a new copy of the 
boot sector right away, just in case.

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions and tips. And for the record, 
Karl, yes, my grub.conf was pretty much configured exactly as you 
stated, which is apparently the correct configuration. But it was indeed 
that I needed to update the boot sector file that NTLDR used.

Raymond




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