Boot Failure w Grub installed to non-MBR partition w/Windows 7 dual boot

[kamikazepipes]

Hello Members of the Forum thanks for your help.



I am a soon to be student about to take a class using fedora linux.
I wanted to get a bit of a head start and install fedora 12 to get a feel before it got going.



Here is my situation and problem:

I want to install a dual boot system w/ Fedora 12 (x86_64) and Windows 7 (Ultimate 64bit)w/ windows in control of the boot.

After installation, fedora fails to boot when I select it as an option at my windows start-up giving the following error:

File: \NST\nst_grub.mbr
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt



Here is background about how I installed and what occurred during installation:

-I just installed windows 7 to a fresh 1.5tb drive.
-After the install, I shruk windows creating 56gb of unallocated space.
-I booted my fedora x86_64 DVD I created from bios.
-I checked the disk and it was good.
-I ran the installer, created a custom layout, select mount point as / file type as ext3 and gave it 40gb of the unallocated space.
-I add the swap partition, and gave it the remaining 16gb as space (double my memory recommended by my textbook I read)
- After writing changes to the disk, I changed the device that grub was installed on to the first sector of boot partition and fedora was ticked
-After the install process finished and files were written to the disk, it rebooted
-After the reboot, the WIN7 bootloader said "Missing Operating System"
(I expected it to boot to Fedora, or hopefully Windows here...so,)
-I changed the active partition back to Winows 7 by running my win7 disk and running the following commands in command prompt:
-------------DISKPART
-------------LIST DISK
-------------SELECT DISK 0
-------------LIST PARTITION
-------------SELECT PARTITION 1
-------------ACTIVE
-------------EXIT (x2)

This allowed my windows 7 to bootup normally.
-I then ran EasyBCD (1.7.2) and added Linux to my bootloader.
-When I restarted I had the option of booting Windows 7 or Fedora 12.
-When selecting Fedora I get the error message above. (Grub missing)


I have already tried the following fixes (as so not to waste your time if at all possible):

(reference: http://www.mjmwired.net/linux/2009/1...mbr-partition/)
-For this fix I tried to change the boot flag as I thought it was on the wrong partition after reading the above link.
-I ran the following in shell in Fedora DVD Rescue:
------fdisk /dev/sda
------a
------3
------a
------1
------p
------w
and restarted.

After restarting Windows bootloader gave same message as previously:
Missing Operating System

-so I again ran DISKPART to reset my active partition.
Windows booted and I restarted to try and get into Fedora 12.
At bootloader option screen, when I click Fedora 12 I again obtained the error message above. (grub missing)

This is all I have attempted. I'm a complete rookie w/ linux but am anxious to learn so all help is greatly appreciated. (I may need it watered down to a rookie's level however sorry)

I ran fdisk again to give everyone willing to help a little more info:
Device Boot Start End Blocks ID System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 1024000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 13 175263 1407689728 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 175263 180362 40960000 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 180363 1802401 16378267 5 extended
/dev/sda5 180363 182401 16377856 82 swap/solaris


Thanks again for all your help it is greatly appreciated.

[stoat]

Hello kamikazepipes,

Everything you posted sounds okay to me. My best guess is the wrong partition has been chosen as the partition where you installed GRUB.

Originally Posted by The EasyBCD Tutorial at NeoSmart

Vista before Linux

EasyBCD makes installing Linux after you have Windows Vista up-and-running a breeze. These steps assume you have Windows Vista properly installed and booting, and are looking to install Linux on a second hard drive or partition. These steps also assume that you are using the default Windows Vista boot loader, and don't manually change the active partition around. If you had Linux installed before you installed Windows Vista, scroll down to the next section.

1. Put the Linux CD in the drive, and start the installation normally.
2. When prompted to set up the bootloader, make sure you specify to install LILO, GRUB, or whatever to the bootsector of the partition that Linux is being installed to and not the MBR of your hard drive.
3. Finish the Linux installation, take the CD out of the drive, and reboot.

At this point, you'll go straight back to Windows Vista. Don't panic, everything is OK - you'll be in Linux soon enough!

1. Turn on EasyBCD, go to the "Add/Remove Entries" screen and pick Linux from the tabs at the top.
2. Pick the appropriate bootloader from the drop-down menu (either GRUB or LILO),
3. Give the entry a user-friendly name (and if you want to keep "NST Linux Loader" as the text, we won't say no!)
4. The hardest part of this mind-numbingly difficult exercise (/sarcasm) is choosing the correct hard drive and partition numbers that correspond to the partition you installed Linux (and most importantly, the bootloader) to. In EasyBCD (and Windows in general), drive numbers start at 0, and partitions start at 1. So the second partition of the first drive would be 0, 2.
5. Press "Add Entry" and reboot.

[kamikazepipes]

Stoat,

Thanks for your quick response.

How would I check to see what partition Grub installed?

I'm pretty confident that i simply changed the option - install boot loader on... - to "First sector of boot partition" but just clicked ok after I saw that fedora was checked.

Was there something more specific I needed to input such as partition it was to install or does that occur by default?

Also, I thought I would post my EasyBCD settings and detailed settings in case that might help.

Overview:
There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Windows 7

Entry #1

Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

detailed:


Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default {bf0673d5-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
resumeobject {bf0673d4-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
displayorder {bf0673d5-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
{bf0673db-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {bf0673d5-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence {bf0673d8-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {bf0673d4-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
nx OptIn

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {bf0673db-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
path \NST\nst_grub.mbr
description Fedora 12 Linux

Entry #2

Name: Fedora 12 Linux
BCD ID: {bf0673db-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
Drive: \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_grub.mbr



If you could let me know what specifically you think I should try, I will give it my best.
Thanks again for all the help.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by me in post #2

My best guess is the wrong partition has been chosen as the partition where you installed GRUB.

Originally Posted by kamikazepipes in post #3

I'm pretty confident that i simply changed the option - install boot loader on... - to "First sector of boot partition" but just clicked ok after I saw that fedora was checked.

Was there something more specific I needed to input such as partition it was to install or does that occur by default?

No, you did that part correctly. I should have given more consideration to how I worded my statement in post #2. I meant to convey that maybe you chose the wrong partition in EasyBCD. The EasyBCD config info that you posted doesn't answer that one way or the other.

[kamikazepipes]

Thanks again stoat for all your help I really appreciate it.

I followed your suggestion w/ EasyBCD and tried changing my linux entry to other partitions in the bootloader.

I have 4 partitions for my drive listed as follows by EasyBCD:
Partition 0 HFPS/NTFS 0GB
Partition 1 HFPS/NTFS 1342GB
Partition 2 Linux native 39Gb
Partition 3 Linux swap 16Gb

So I went ahead and just created an entry for linux in each of the partitions by selecting add entry, and under linux tab choose grub as type and selected each of the partitions.

My updated bootloader looked like this in EasyBCD:
There are a total of 5 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Windows 7

Entry #1

Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

Entry #2

Name: Linux Partition 2
BCD ID: {bf0673dc-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
Drive: \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_grub.mbr

Entry #3

Name: Linux Partition 3
BCD ID: {bf0673dd-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
Drive: \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_grub-09DD2319001DC5DE44CB356DF14211F5.mbr

Entry #4

Name: Linux Partition 0
BCD ID: {bf0673de-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
Drive: U:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_grub-C69F001AB0D38C84AE900A6A3F7BD021.mbr

Entry #5

Name: Linux Partition 1
BCD ID: {bf0673df-f43b-11de-bc71-d0958f7de584}
Drive: \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_grub-98EDC7D4384409741E9EC3C94FA9AE1E.mbr


When I restarted I only had options for Windows, or Linux in partition 1,2 or 3 (not 0 maybe b/c windows is already there?)

However, each failed when I selected to run them w/ a very similiar message as the orginal post, just a slightly different bootpath.


So, i doesn't seem to be able to find grub on any of my partitions is seems to me.
Do you think I need to reinstall grub to partition 3 (linux native)? (I don't know how to do this if so)
If I do this will windows still be in control or am I going to have to re-make the windows bootloader position active again?

Thanks again for all your help.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by kamikazepipes

Do you think I need to reinstall grub to partition 3 (linux native)?

That's what I would do. It takes only a few minutes to do it. Even if it doesn't help, it's harmless when done correctly.

Originally Posted by kamikazepipes

(I don't know how to do this if so)

1. Boot with the Fedora DVD.
2. Choose "Rescue installed system".
3. Follow along and run chroot /mnt/sysimage at the sh prompt as instructed.
4. At the next sh prompt enter grub-install /dev/sda3.
5. If you get a "No corresponding drive in BIOS" error, then do it again like this: grub-install --recheck /dev/sda3
6. Enter exit two times in a row to exit linux rescue and reboot.
7. Remove the DVD.

Now do the EasyBCD steps again to add the third partition (3) of the first drive (0) to the Windows boot menu.

Originally Posted by kamikazepipes

If I do this will windows still be in control or am I going to have to re-make the windows bootloader position active again?

No. The grub-install thing does not change the active partition.

[kamikazepipes]

Stoat, I can't say thanks enough for all of the help and quick responses it's great.

So I followed your instructions as above.
Loaded the DVD, rescue system, went immediately to shell prompt and input the following:

chroot /mnt/sysimage (hit enter)

Response:
chroot: cannot change root directory to /mnt/sysimage: No such file or directory.
bash-4.0#

I went ahead and tried the other command knowing it probably would not work:
grub-install /dev/sda3
And it did not recognize the command grub-install.

I'm assuming it did not recognize the second command b/c it could not mount the system image.
Is this a problem w/ my installation DVD or the files written to the hard drive?

I double checked all of my commands before I exited to ensure they were as written above.

Let me know if there is any other information I can give you to make your kind assistance easier.
Thanks again.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by kamikazepipes

So I followed your instructions as above.
Loaded the DVD, rescue system, went immediately to shell prompt...

Okay. I don't really know what is going wrong, but that part right there doesn't sound right to me. It shouldn't go immediately to the sh prompt. There are several prompts (keyboard, language, network) and some informational text boxes before you land at the sh prompt.

Originally Posted by kamikazepipes

Response:
chroot: cannot change root directory to /mnt/sysimage: No such file or directory.
bash-4.0#

To me, and for whatever reason, linux rescue is not discovering your installed system.

Like you, I boot Linux systems with a Windows boot loader. But not Vista's or W7's. I use XP's boot loader. So I don't use EasyBCD, but I read about it here and at NeoSmart often. Nevertheless, the common issue when booting Fedora with any other boot loader is this... When GRUB is installed in the first sector of the Fedora boot partition, some other boot loader has to boot it (obviously). You don't even know if Fedora is capable of booting until you do that. At this point, I am not really sure if the problem is with EasyBCD or GRUB or Fedora. You need a boot disk to try booting Fedora to confirm that it can boot at all.

Short of just re-installing Fedora (a reasonable thing to do, too), I would download and create a Super Grub Disk. It's a popular free utility that can boot a GRUB-booted Linux system when the only thing wrong with it is the boot loader. Even when the grub.conf file is ruined, it can still boot the system's kernel directly. So if the Super Grub Disk cannot boot your Fedora, then nothing (including W7) can boot it. The Super Grub Disk will be handy to have around anyway for future booting emergencies (they happen to everybody who uses GRUB). It's easy to find with Google. If the Super Grub Disk boots Fedora, then the problem is with EasyBCD and the Windows 7 boot loader arrangement.

P.S.: Another way to test Fedora is to change it's partition back to the active partition and reboot. The Windows boot strapping code in the master boot record will load and execute GRUB stage1 if it was correctly installed in the first sector of the Fedora boot partition. If that doesn't work, then GRUB or Fedora or both are busted.

[kamikazepipes]

Stoat, I'm sorry that I'm such a pain and still require your help but thanks for all your doing for me.

First off, I wasn't very clear myself on my last post. When I stated: "went immediately to shell prompt" , I was meaning that I skipped through the networking and other menu until I got to the menu that allowed me to select shell, sorry for the confusion.


Thanks for your suggestions, I think we are figuring this thing out.


So, following your recommendation I performed the following:
-downloaded and ran the super grub disk (specifically version .9799)
-Navigated through the menus until I could select "Boot GNU/Linux" (I believe to directly boot the kernal)
when I selected this I received the following message:

Error 15: File not found

While I was using the disk I also tried "Boot GNU/Linux Indirectly"
when I selected this it would load for a few seconds and then restart to BIOS.


As far as you second suggestion, to change fedora back to the active partition, I do not know how to perform (sorry).


From the results of the Super Grub Disk w/ Error 15, I'm guessing it can't even find the kernal, which sounds like the whole thing is busted (not sure how I managed that).

If you think it's the best thing, I can try and re-install Fedora 12 to the same partition I orginally attempted. I'm not sure on how to go about and do this so if you could give me a quick walkthrough it would help a ton. Any other advice on the install would be greatly appreciated as well.

As far as my original disk goes, I download F12 from fedora project under direct downloads and utilized the direct download option for the install DVD of x86_64. Burned the iso with imgburn and checked it w/ both imgburn and before the install. If you think I should make a new disk I can do that as well.


Thanks again for the immense amount of help and time.

[stoat]

I think I would take a stab at re-installing the whole thing. It doesn't take that long. And since the system never booted, it has no real value anyway.

Reboot with the DVD, choose the "Create custom layout" partitioning option. Then on the next page (the disk druid), choose the old partition and either "Edit" it to reformat it or "Delete" it and recreate it as "New". Either way, create and format an ext3 or ext4 partition for Fedora. You can leave the swap alone and it will be discovered automatically by Anaconda and re-used. That existing swap is probably excessively large, and probably never will be fully used. But that's up to you.

If you still want to use the Windows 7 boot loader, then again watch for and click the "Change device" button. In the resulting pop-up, choose to install GRUB in the first sector of the Fedora boot partition. Finish. Reboot. Do the EasyBCD thing again.

[kamikazepipes]

So if nothing else at least I'm consistent.......

So I went ahead and booted from the fedora disk.
Checked my disk and clicked the install or upgrade.

Eventually, when i moved through enough menus I selected my main linux partition (40gb one) clicked edit, and selected it as the / and changed format to ext4 (instead of 3 previously)

It warned me that it would have to be formatted and everything would be erased.


I changed install bootloader to first secotr of boot partition and clicked ok.


Now I notice when I could select my software applications and such that I could also change my repostories (not sure what was supposed to be selected here)
I just left it as installation repos only and did not select any other options such as:
fedora 12 x86_64 or any of the other options.

Is that correct?

Anyhow, after i continued it installed 1400 or so software packages and rebooted.

When it finished rebooting it gave me the same error as before.
'Missing Operating System'


So I again changed active partition in command prompt on win7 disk and it booted to windows.
When I tried fedora 12 after restarting it gave me the same error as my original post:

File: \NST\nst_grub.mbr
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt


So I feel like I must be doing something wrong during the installation process.
I'm sorry I'm ignorant but is there anything else I could be doing wrong during the install that's screwing it up each time?

Thanks for all your help stoat.

[stoat]

Well, I still can't say what is wrong, but IMO this should not have happened (either time)...

Originally Posted by kamikazepipes

When it finished rebooting it gave me the same error as before.
'Missing Operating System'

As I said before, I boot everything with NTLoader. So when I install these newest Fedoras (F11 & F12) with GRUB in the first sector of the Fedora boot partition, the active partition gets changed. But for me, that results in the new Fedora system booting directly from BIOS. When I change the active partition back to the Windows partition, Windows boots again. Then I can configure the Windows boot loader to boot Fedora. So I have to wonder if GRUB really is being installed in the Fedora boot partition.

[kamikazepipes]

Stoat,

I couldn't agree more that it shouldn't be giving me the:

'Missing Operating System' error message.

That's why I feel like I must be performing something wrong during the installation.
Am I selecting the correct options for selecting repositories?

I just have been leaving that as the default which does not have fedora x86_64 selected.

Thanks again.

[jenaniston]

As a suggestion to help troubleshoot -

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

After download, run the boot_info_script044.sh (61.0KB) with terminal . . .

[liveuser@localhost ~]$ su -
[root@localhost ~]# cd /home/liveuser/Download
[root@localhost Download]# bash boot_info_script044.sh

It looks at MBR of other OS as well as what booted . . .

Identifying MBRs...

Computing Partition Table of /dev/sda...
Computing Partition Table of /dev/sdb...
Searching sda1 for information... 
Searching sdb1 for information... 
Finished. The results are in the file RESULTS.txt located in /home/liveuser/Download

As example, from booting this F11 Live USB /dev/sdb the RESULTS.text file I get . . .


============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================

=> Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda
=> Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb
sda1: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows XP
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows XP
Boot files/dirs: /boot.ini /ntldr /NTDETECT.COM

sdb1: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: vfat
Boot sector type: Fat32
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs:

=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================

etc
etc etc


Maybe this can help.
Good luck.

[kamikazepipes]

thanks for the troubleshooting suggestion jenaniston (that's kinda wierd to say...),

I tried following your suggestions by performing the following:

-Downloaded fedora live cd from fedora website
-burned iso w/ imgburn
-restarted and ran fedora via live cd

after it initialized I performed the following:

-became a bit familiar since this was the first time I've ever seen the fedora desktop.
-downloaded boot_info_script044.sh from the link you gave above (mine saved to documents instead of downloads so i copied it to there as well)
-Right-clicked and selected first option (Kustom or something I'm sorry I forgot the name but definately first thing when you right click to get me able to type in commands)


It displayed:
[liveuser@localhost ~]$
- I typed in: su -

It displayed:
[root@localhost ~]#
-I typed in: cd /home/liveuser/Download
From here it said that the file/directory did not exist (maybe not verbatim but essentially)


I was a bit confused b/c even when i was navigating around, my home folder dislplayed /home/liveuser under it so I was pretty confident that was my directory.


So I played a bit and just typed in:
[root@localhost ~]# cd /home

and it displayed:
[root@localhost home]#


when I next typed in:
[root@localhost home]# cd /liveuser
it again said that the directory did not exist.

I also tried:
[root@localhost home]# cd /download
And again it said that the directory did not exist. (I didn't really expect this one to work)


I have almost zero experience w/ command prompt/shell but I do believe I was just simply telling it to change the directory until I was in the folder where I could run the bash boot_info_script044.sh I downloaded. I have no idea why I was having problems.

Any advice on why this may have occurred.
Thanks again everyone.