F8/F9 Multiboot question

[Daniel B. Thurman]

Tom Horsley wrote:
>
> On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:47:13 -0700
> Dan Thurman <dant at cdkkt.com> wrote:
>
> > Does anyone have any advice in how to do this up properly?
>
> chainloader is what I use. I've got a partition with nothing
> but grub on it (used to be a /boot partition for an old
> fedora, and I kept it around to just use for grub), and a
> grub.conf file that looks like:
>
> default=0
> timeout=10
> splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/zooty.xpm.gz
> title Fedora 8 x86_64
>         rootnoverify (hd0,2)
>         chainloader +1
> title Fedora 8 i386
>         rootnoverify (hd0,7)
>         chainloader +1
> title Fedora 9 x86_64
>         rootnoverify (hd0,0)
>         chainloader +1
> title Fedora 9 i386
>         rootnoverify (hd0,4)
>         chainloader +1
>
The layout of my drives and partitions:

=========================+=============================
Fedora drive: 750GB      | Windows drive: 320GB
DRIVE 1: SDA             | DRIVE 2: SDB
=========================+=============================
sda1 ext3 boot-sys 100M  | sdb1  ntfs w2kPro    35G
sda2 ext3 boot-f8  100M  | sdb2  ntfs XP        35G
sda2 ext3 boot-f9  100M  | sdb3  ntfs Vista     50G
sda4 ---- Extended       | sdb4  ---- Extended
sda5 ext3 root-f8  175G  | sdb5  ext3 *boot-win 100M
sda6 ext3 root-f9  175G  | sdb6  ntfs w-App1    <rest>
sda7 ext3 f-App1  <rest> |
sad8 swap          ~5G   |
=========================+=============================
(*) - This partition may be removed if deemed unnecessary.

Notes:
======
1) The BIOS can be changed to the specific primary boot drive,
   and I can easily boot the fedora drive w/ grub boot-loader
   BIOs switch, and boot the currently active Windows OS partition.
   I can change the active partitions easily using the Computer->
   Manage->Disk Management application.

2) Windows drive partitions and installing OS:

   If you want each partition to be standalone, be sure
   to make the partition being installed active first before
   using the OS install CD. Windows 2K Pro has limited LBA
   so install w2kPro first and upon completion, update the
   registry change to add the EnableBigLba DWORD=1 entry
   before continuing to other M$ OSes partitions.  Just
   remember to set the active partition to the next Win-OS
   being CD installed.

I have spent several days rebuilding my windows-only drive;
w2kPro, XP, and Vista. To make a long story short, I made a lot
of personal mistakes and ended up trashing the windows partitions
(LBA).  I have now rebuilt the Win-drive and I am ready to get it
all working under the Grub configuration above - and I have ran
into the same troubles as I had before the trashing i.e., I cannot
figure out why I cannot get the chain-loaders to work for w2kPro
and XP, but it works for Vista now (go figure!). Keep in mind,
that the primary boot drive is SDA - so, grub is from SDA's
perspective when it sees itself in relation to other drives
and may be seen differently should you change your primary boot
drive to another drive, that is, "flipping" the drive around
via the BIOs.  It is interesting to see how grub "sees" things.

Ever since I could not figure out how to get the chain loaders
to see w2kPro/Xp - I tried another method by adding a ext3
logical partition at sdb5 as seem in the above chart and I was
able to change the MBR to grub.  I was hoping to get grub @ SDA
primary boot to "see" this partition and launch from it. No dice.
It was easy to restore the MBR for w2kPro, Just set the active
partition to sdb1, reboot with OS's CD, go into Recovery console,
and type in: fixmbr, reboot and you have your original MBR back.

Interestingly, if I change the primary boot to the windows drive,
the Grub boot-loader comes up and I was able to select w2kPro, XP,
and Vista just fine.

I wonder if the problem is directly related to the use of chain-loaders
in that it cannot cross physical drive boundaries and is confined to
the active drive and its partitions?

Here is my boot-sys grub.conf file:
====================================
# cat /media/boot-sys/grub/grub.conf
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# 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/sda5
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
#hiddenmenu
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
default=saved
timeout=5

title Fedora 8 (SDA1)
        rootnoverify (hd0,1)     (works!)
        chainloader +1
        savedefault
title Fedora 9
        rootnoverify (hd0,2)     (works!)
        chainloader +1
        savedefault
title Windows 2000
        rootnoverify (hd1,0)     (fails!)
        chainloader +1
        savedefault
title Windows XP
        rootnoverify (hd1,1)     (fails!)
        chainloader +1
        savedefault
title Windows Vista
        rootnoverify (hd1,2)     (works!)
        chainloader +1
        savedefault


Can anyone advise?

Thanks!
Dan