New FC3 Install for Dual Boot w/ WinXP Fails After BIOS

[stevenerat at yahoo.com (Steven Erat)]

Hi Grant,

Thanks for the reply.  Yeah, its my impression too that the MBR is hosed. 
There was a similar problem with FC2 where you'd get the grub menu, but
you couldn't boot Windows and reinitializing the MBR with fdisk wouldn't
work. That issue turned out be fixable with a sfdisk command run while in
rescue mode.

Now in FC3 I don't even get the splash screen grub menu.  Now I've done
many other Red Hat installs on dual boot machines, never with the problems
I've seen since Fedora.

Since there was an elegant solution to the FC2 issue about 2 or 3 weeks
after the problem was widely publicized, I'm holding my breath that there
might be another elegant solution for FC3 in the near future, before I try
wiping the MBR.

I've truncated the config files off this reply, so see the first email or
ask me to repost if anyone would like to see them again.

Thanks again.
Steve

--- Grant Young <granty at bellatlantic.net> wrote:

> Quick response.  My guess is that the Windows MBR is hosed, the Linux
> partition isn't set to be bootable and I think it needs to be a primary
> partition to be bootable.  I've never had RH/Fedora successfully dual
> boot Windows when I let it set it up during installation.  I know it can
> be done but I can't get it to work for me. I've always used System
> Commander to get it work on my laptops and it had the advantage of
> including Partition Commander which does an OK job of setting up the
> partitions without messing the Windows partition up. And then I set grub
> to use the initial blocks of the boot partition rather than the MBR.
> 
> You'll probably need to find the recovery CD and use it to recover the
> Windows MBR or use fdisk \mbr (I think).  In theory Windows can use it's
> boot loader to dual boot but I've had trouble with that, too.
> 
> Others on the list, feel free to flame me and show me the errors of my
> advice.
> 
> On Tue, 2004-11-16 at 11:05 -0800, Steven Erat wrote:
> > Hi All,
> > 
> > I'm looking for assistance with the following problem.  Any help
> > appreciated. Thank you!
> > 
> > -Steve
> > 
> > 
> > Description:
> > -----------------
> > New install of Fedora Core 3 final build from DVD iso to Dell 8600
> > Inspiron laptop with Windows XP SP2 on hda2 and 12.5 MB free space. 
> First
> > time Linux has touched this machine.
> > 
> > Configured Windows as default OS during FC3 install and set boot
> password
> > option for grub. FC3 installe12 MB is pretty slim for an FC3 install. 
> In fact I think it's probably too slim.  
> 
> 
> > d to the free space with: 1GB Swap, 4.5 GB /,
> > 2GB /opt, 2GB /home, 2GB /usr/local. No problems.  
> > 
> > /dev/hda4 is the extended partition. /dev/hda5 is /.
> > 
> > Windows XP boots off /dev/hda2.  Dell has some type of recovery data
> that
> > came with the machine on /dev/hda1.  I'm not inclinded to try any
> > Dell/Windows recovery software quite yet because I don't want to
> disturb
> > the evidence at the crime scene.
> > 
> > Machine will not boot past BIOS display. It displays BIOS, then does
> an
> > auto reboot, displays BIOS, ad infinitum...  Does not even get to
> > visualization of grub stage 2 splash screen.
> > 
> > To inspect the file system and recover data to post here, I loaded
> > Knopppix 3.3 from boot CD and file system for WinXP and FC3 appear
> intact.
> >  In the fdisk output below, not that /dev/sda1 is an artifact of
> having an
> > external USB storage device mounted while running Knoppix to recover
> data
> > 
> > This is not the same hard disk geometry problem as was in FC2. I
> > experienced that problem and solution on another machine earlier this
> > year.
> > 

( see original email for grub.conf, devices.map, and fdisk -l)