Multiboot WinXP, FC2 & Xandros under Xandros lilo? Do I have to worry about FC2 bug?

[RobF]

I read some posts about a bug in FC2 that corrupts the partition table and makes it impossible to dual-boot into Windows XP and FC2. I don't understand the technical details sufficiently to judge whether this bug would affect a planned install of FC2 on my system. Perhaps someone can help me with this.

On my first HDD, I have Windows XP in two partitions, hda1 (vfat) and hda2 (nfts). On my second HDD, I have several different Linux distros in separate partitions. The boot loader is the lilo of Xandros OS which resides in the MBR of hda; from the Xandros lilo boot menu I can boot into Windows XP or any of the Linux distros.

I would like now to install FC2 in hdb1 (which is a primary bootable partition) and boot it through the Xandros lilo as I do for the other Linux distros. Xandros itself resides on hdb3. The swap partition is hdb6.

Questions: Will the FC2 installer give me the option NOT to install the FC2 GRUB in the MBR (where it would replace the Xandros lilo and possibly ruin the partition table)? If I proceed in this fashion (i.e. not writing the FC2 GRUB to the MBR but merely to /boot of the FC2 partition), will this bug still cause trouble with the partition table, or will I be safe? I.e. is there a way to install FC2 in a multi-boot system without it corrupting the partition table?

Many thanks in advance.

Robert

[ryaprobs]

As far as I can recall, Red Hat has always (since 7.0 at least made installation of the boot loader optional (and configurable). From what I remember of the FC2 installer, this is still the case. As long as you know how to configure LILO you should be fine

If you are skipping GRUB because you are afraid of losing your Windows install, I would add that there is an extremely simple fix for this problem. I lost Windows when I installed FC2 as well, but was able to fix it in about 30 seconds by following the instructions on this site: http://www.fedorafaq.org/#nodualboot

One nice thing about going with GRUB is that the FC2 installer should find your Windows and Xandros installations automatically and set up boot menu options for both (although I've seen it ignore a SUSE install). Additionally, I've always found GRUB to be a lot more configurable and useful for systems that have several operating systems.

[imdeemvp]

it only happens it you hard drive in the BIOS is under AUTO but if you change to LBA mode before the installation you wont have to worry about it...

it will not mess up your win 2k or xp partitions.....and this is was also a HUGH BUG in mandrake 10 community release about 5 months ago.

[RobF]

Thanks, folks, for responding to my query. As a preemptive measure against the FC2 bug possibly corrupting my partition table (or, to be specific, the hard disk geometry value in the format that Windows expects there), I started the FC2 install by passing the value of the geometry my boot hard disk to the kernel on the boot command line, i.e.

boot: linux hda=3647,255,63

where the numbers refer to the geometry in CHS format of my boot hard disk. I don't know whether this really preempted a partition table problem but I didn't have any trouble booting into WinXP on hda or any of the Linux distros on hdb after the FC2 install.

In the boot loader configuration section I chose the option of installing GRUB in the first sector of the /boot partition of hdb1 (that's the partition in which I installed FC2), NOT in the MBR on hda which still holds the lilo from Xandros. After two reboots into Xandros, an entry for FC2 showed up in the Xandros lilo boot menu, and that's how I'm able to boot into FC2 or any of the other OS's on my machine.

So everything went smoothly, and I found the Anaconda installer to be well designed and extremely easy to use.

Robert