Install / Bootloader help

[mordex]

Hello.

I have a laptop with 2 hdds.

i have XP on the primary and nothing on the secondary.

i burnt FC5 dvd and booted. followed the wizard through and checked the grub boot loader and selected that it install to my primary disk MBR.

Fedora installed fine on my empty 2nd disk. however my PC still just boots direct to XP. no boot loader.

i have booted of the fedora DVD again and it does say it cant detect what bootloader im using.. so i tried a few diff options for grub but still no joy.. FC is installed but i cant get to it.

could someone advise me how to get grub working.. im new to linux so bare with me.

[mordex]

*Update*

before i posted i did read the following thread

http://forum.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=975&highlight=install+grub+mbr

however when running the 'find /boot/grub/stage1' command i get "not found" response.

kinda walking blind here as im not 100% sure what im doing.. any help much appreciated

bootloader options were

/dev/sda MBR
/dev/hda first sector

i went with the sda option as thats the primary disk. hda is the second disk which has the linux partitions on

[Sal811]

It's very possible that the MBR was written to your secondary drive. During the install if you happened to enter the "Change Drive Order" option and make any changes prior to exiting, your bootloader option will also change. To prove this point, Try configuring your laptops BIOS to boot off your secondary drive and see what happens.

[jimwalt]

*Update*

before i posted i did read the following thread

http://forum.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=975&highlight=install+grub+mbr

however when running the 'find /boot/grub/stage1' command i get "not found" response.



I ran into a similar issue lately with that guide... I had to type 'find /grub/stage1' instead and it worked. Hope that helps :D

[mordex]

I followed the guide already.

i get an 'not found' message when using the find command for that.

if i take the 2nd disk out it still boots. i didnt change the boot order in the grub options. i left it so that my XP primary disk was first in the list.

As i have a laptop i cant change the bios to the 2nd disk - doesnt have the option. only 'internal hdd' and 'cd rom'

if i take the linux hdd out the PC still boots to XP. is it possible to get the boot loader onto this XP disk or does it have to be on a linux partition.

hmm thinking aloud i cant tell the PC to boot from the linux disk first. this could be the issue?

[jimwalt]

I followed the guide already.

i get an 'not found' message when using the find command for that.


I am not quoting the guide there, its something that I had to figure out myself. The guide said to type 'find /boot/grub/stage1'. You should try 'find /grub/stage1'. Then continue on with the rest of the guide. If that doesn't work, lemme know. :D

[mordex]

ah rite,

im just using partition not so magic to make some space at the beginning of the primary disk. then istall the bootloader to that.

once i have it installed and working/not working ill let ya know

[mordex]

right that worked. i made room for a 300mb linux partition at the biginning of the primary disk. fedora then installed and grub booted.

thanks for the help guys.

[mordex]

hmm ok... now i cant boot to windows XP. i have rebooted off the fedora CD and configured the bootloader again.. no joy.
config for XP is:

Rootnovarify (HD1,4)
Chainloader +1

Im propper stuck now.

[Sal811]

You need to edit the grub file again with "map" entries:

..
title windows
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader(hd1,0)+1
...

In this example, Windows is started from the second hard disk. For this purpose, the logical sequence of the hard disks is changed with map.

You should also remove the following two lines you added:
rootnoverify (hd1,4)
chainloader+1