[SOLVED] After Installation Problem

[shubhashish]

I have installed fedora 17. 1 error msg occurred that boot loader is unable to load. ur system may not bootable but after that it said congrate fedora 17 is installed successfully.But when I starts my computer only windows 7 is loading. But the fedora is still exits in my system. Please help me.

[coffee412]

Sounds like your loader (grub) didnt install to the booting hard drive. I was going to outline all the steps you need to take but found a good link on that to help you out. It should get you back up and running.

http://www.abouthack.com/articles/li...fedora-17.html

Hope this helps.

[shubhashish]

I clicked on Rescue installed system but nothing came for 30 mins. So restarted the system and tried this for 3 more times but nothing came(no terminal window came). Then I tried to upgrade the system then an option came that do u want to install boot loader then I choose Yes. Then it ask where to install then I choose MBR(which is by default). Then a msg came that unable to install the boot loader ur system may not be bootable(same old msg). Then I tried it again but I choose the location sda5 to install the boot loader. It successfully installed but when I rebooted the windows 7 is opening not the boot loader.

PLEASE HELP ME.

[george_toolan]

Your computer is only looking at the MBR for an operatings system when you switch it on.

Now you have to configure your windows boot loader to boot the operating system from /dev/sda5.

[shubhashish]

How to configure windows??

[george_toolan]

Try http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...t-how-use.html

[coffee412]

Originally Posted by george_toolan

Your computer is only looking at the MBR for an operatings system when you switch it on.

Now you have to configure your windows boot loader to boot the operating system from /dev/sda5.

I think I have to disagree with this (repectively). The computer will boot from the first drive unless you change something in your bios. You do not have to go in and change windows bootloader. If you ran the grub installer and pointed it to sda5 then its not going to boot linux at all if your running only one hard drive.

sda5 could very well be an extended partition or perhaps a swap partition. Therefore running grub on it would have no effect on booting.

To actually know what is going on we need to take a look at what drives are installed in the system and also the partition layout before cranking out options that can cause more problems.

run fdisk -l > disks.txt in the rescue enviroments and lets take a look at what is actually going on.

coffee

[george_toolan]

/dev/sda5 can't be an extended partition, because that's /dev/sda4. It's the first logical partition inside the extended partition.

I don't think Fedora/anaconda would offer to install the boot loader on a swap partition (and succeed). It should be smarter than that.

Usually there are only two valid options to install the boot loader. Either the MBR or the Fedora boot/root partition ;-)

[coffee412]

Originally Posted by george_toolan

/dev/sda5 can't be an extended partition, because that's /dev/sda4. It's the first logical partition inside the extended partition.

I don't think Fedora/anaconda would offer to install the boot loader on a swap partition (and succeed). It should be smarter than that.

Usually there are only two valid options to install the boot loader. Either the MBR or the Fedora boot/root partition ;-)

You see, I have no way of knowing as I dont have any information on how this computer is setup. I threw (sp?) that out there really as an example. The master boot record will be on sda1 normally unless they have some sort of different setup. But I dont know that. Thats why I would like to see more info before I jump in any further to tackle such a problem.

As an example see the below output of one of my second drives below:

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0003d40e

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 1026047 512000 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 1026048 105883647 52428800 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 105883648 126461951 10289152 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb4 126461952 488397167 180967608 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 126464000 488396799 180966400 83 Linux

I just dont think anything else can or should be suggested until we get more information from the OP or we gonna create a mess and reinstall.

Best Regards,

coffee

[george_toolan]

The MBR is always at the beginning of the drive (first 512 bytes) before any partition and the extended partition is the fourth partition ;-)

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          63    58605119    29302528+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb4        58605120   976768064   459081472+   5  Extended
/dev/sdb5        58605183    62524979     1959898+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb6        62525043   976768064   457121511   83  Linux

See? Even if there's only one primary partition.

[DBelton]

I concur that /dev/sda5 is a logical partition in an extended partition (If it is a MBR partitioned drive), but you have no way of knowing if /dev/sda5 is the Fedora /boot partition. As stated, it could be the / it could be /home or even /swap. The way that they stated they installed it to /dev/sda5 leaves too many options. You could put the bootloader into any partition you wish.

While I would tend to think that /dev/sda5 is indeed the /boot partition, there is no way to know for certain without more information.

In this case, I would boot into rescue mode or from a LiveCD and install grub2 into the MBR and see what it tells you.

There might possibly be a step missing from the instructions linked above to to re-install grub2 from the F17 install media.

I had to bind mount /dev before doing the chroot.

try this after booting from the install media and selecting rescue mode:

mount -o bind /proc /mnt/sysimage/proc
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/sysimage/dev
mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sysimage/sys

chroot /mnt/sysimage

grub2-install /dev/sda
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

If all goes well exit the chroot and reboot

[coffee412]

You are right. But Im not going to get into a discussion of something that really doesnt pertain to the problem at hand. . I understand that you are quite knowledgeable and thats great.

However, The fact remains that I have no information from the OP about his setup so I really cannot comment further on the issue. Doing so is really just going to cause more problems.

I will wait and see if the OP responds

Best Regards,

coffee

[george_toolan]

You could put the bootloader into any partition you wish.

Have you tried to put it on a swap partition?

# mkswap /dev/sdb5
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 1959892 KiB
no label, UUID=703c168b-f666-4531-b738-1b3ba0df9ccf

# grub2-install /dev/sdb5
/sbin/grub2-setup: error: unable to identify a filesystem in hd1; safety check can't be performed.

Doesn't seem to be working ;-)

[shubhashish]

I have already told that the boot loader is unable to install in the MBR i.e. in sda. So I installed it on the sda5 i.e. /boot/ partition of fedora. One more thing the rescue system taking a lot of time(30 mins I waited) but unable to open a terminal or anything. How much time I should wait for a rescue window to open.

[twopintsandanax]

The BIOS points to the primary boot device that you select (physical). If this is sda1, then grub2 should be installed there, regardless of where your bootable linux partition is on that drive. Grub2 will then determine which bootable partition to select based upon the users selection (either win7 or fc17 I guess in this case). I had some issues in years gone by (not saying how many, but it involved Mandrake Linux) for a few releases, the boot loader would corrupt the Master Boot Record if I installed it there, I had to direct it to install to the first sector of the drive I chose. I am not saying this is your issue, however I am saying that the bootloader needs to be installed in the MBR of the primary bootable media as setup in your BIOS in order for it to work. Also, there was a rescue cd iso/usb iso that the Grub2 team used to produce that I have used in the past, maybe called rescatux??? Let us know how your hardware is set up, maybe the answer will be obvious to some here and they/we can help you solve this.