Help! FC4 dual boot, 2 drives fails XP boot

[zebra91000]

My dual boot, dual disk setup boots to FC4, but I lost access to Windows XP.

I've studied the forums, google and tutorials for days, but I am still not sure how best to proceed. Please help me figure out how to correct this problem.

The machine is a Compaq AMD Sempron 3400+ (no floppy, just DVD/RW) with 200G ATA drive running XP, at least it used to.

Hoping to simplify dual boot setup with FC4 and Windows XP, I added a second IDE drive for FC4 (as recommended by the docs), and I installed using grub. Now I can't get to XP on the ATA drive, I can only boot to Linux on the IDE drive.

Here is more information that may help:

When I boot, I get the grub menu and I can select either FC4 or XP, but XP does not boot, only FC4 boots.

When I edit the XP script, I get:

rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

So it looks to me like the IDE drive I added for FC4 became drive 0, and I am wondering whether that is a problem since W/XP may want drive 0? I took out the jumper on the new IDE drive so it is set as a single drive, but I am not sure whether that is relevant to this problem.

When I run fdisk on Linux, I get the following partitions (can't copy/paste so it is typed vertically instead of horizonally):

The 160GB IDE Linux disk partition information:

device=/dev/hda1
boot=*
start=1
end=13
blocks=104,391
id=83
system=Linux

device=/dev/hda2
boot=""
start=14
end=19457
blocks=156183930
id=8e
system=Linux LVM

The 200G ATA Windows/XP disk partition information:

device=/dev/sda1
boot=""
start=1
end=911
blocks=7317576
id=c
system=W95 FAT32 (LBA)

device=/dev/sda2
boot=*
start=912
end=24321
blocks=188040825
id=17
system=hidden HPFS/NTFS

When I look at my BIOS, I see:
-first channel device 0 160G IDE
-second channel device 0 DVD
-third channel device 0 200G ATA

I would appreciate any suggestions on how to correct this problem so I can boot to either XP or Linux. If you need additional information, please let me know.

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Firewing1]

please run and post the output of
echo -e "grub.conf\n";cat /etc/grub.conf;echo -e "\nmenu.lst\n";cat /boot/grub/device.map
(this must be done as root)
you might wanna add this to the Windows part of the grub.conf:
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
Firewing1

[zebra91000]

Originally Posted by Firewing1

please run and post the output of
echo -e "grub.conf\n";cat /etc/grub.conf;echo -e "\nmenu.lst\n";cat /boot/grub/device.map
(this must be done as root)
you might wanna add this to the Windows part of the grub.conf:
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
Firewing1

Thanks for the quick response!

I am not networked on Linux yet, so I will type results of each of the two files. Hope that is OK.

/boot/grub/device.map content:
# this device map was generated by anaconda
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/sda


/etc/grub.conf content (skipping comment lines, hope that is OK)
default=0
timeout=35
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora Core (2.6.11-1.1369_FC4)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4.img
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

Please let me know if you need additional information!

I am not sure where to add:
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)

Please let me know your theory on what is happening.

[jim]

maybe like so

title Windows
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

[zebra91000]

Originally Posted by fedorajim

maybe like so

When I added the two map lines, the system went into COMPAQ PC Recovery, which I assume is a utility that tries to recover the W/XP partition. There is a small partition on this XP system that can do recovery, so I assume that is what it is trying to do.

Any suggestions?

[Firewing1]

change to rootnoverify (hd1,1)
Firewing1

[zebra91000]

Some progress with the 3 changes!
Windows screen comes up as if it is rebooting to XP. However, a message says:

autocheck program not found, skipping autocheck

and then it goes back to grub and I can only boot linux.

[Firewing1]

hmmm... that's odd. I think I have it. A similar thing happened to me.
Please try installing a kernel NTFS module so we can see WinXP's configuration (readily avalible off Livna + yum) - - I think it still thinks it's primary so it searches on HD1 -- Your linux -- And then can't find the autocheck tool.
Anyways, while you're at it, can you post
/sbin/fdisk -l /dev/sda
as root?
Thanks,
Firewing1

[zebra91000]

Here is result of /sbin/fdisk -l /dev/sda
I am typing it in by hand...

disk /dev/sda: 200 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units= cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

device boot start end blocks id system
/dev/sda1 1 911 7317576 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 * 912 24321 188040825 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS

I am not sure how to:
Please try installing a kernel NTFS module so we can see WinXP's configuration (readily avalible off Livna + yum) or where to get this.
The machine is not networked yet, so I would need to download on my other xp system and burn a cd to do it. Please let me know more details on where/ how to get the kernel NTFS module. Is this an RPM that is on one of the 5 FC4 iso disks (plus I have the CF4 rescuecd)?

Thanks very much for following up on this! Sorry for the delayed response, I had to leave for a while.

[zebra91000]

Should I assume that my MBR for W/XP drive is wiped out?

Is there a simple way to restore it without resorting to a complete restore of W/XP and perhaps reinstall of FC4?

Thanks for the help!

[nvmkpk]

Should I assume that my MBR for W/XP drive is wiped out?

That should not be the case. Probably the file (autochk.exe) got deleted or something similar.

I am not sure how to:
Please try installing a kernel NTFS module so we can see WinXP's configuration (readily avalible off Livna + yum) or where to get this. 
The machine is not networked yet, so I would need to download on my other xp system and burn a cd to do it. Please let me know more details on where/ how to get the kernel NTFS module. Is this an RPM that is on one of the 5 FC4 iso disks (plus I have the CF4 rescuecd)?

Goto http://rpm.livna.org/configuration.html and follow the yum's instructions for FC4 (download the rpm file and run the specified command)

Then run the command yum install kenrel-ntfs

Search for the mounting ntfs partition in this forum.

After you mount the partition, you can examine the files of your ntfs partition

[zebra91000]

Thanks for the information!

I am not connected to the network yet so I had to burn a CD on my Windows/XP with two RPMs:
-livna-release4.rpm
-kernel-module-ntfs-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4-2.1.22-0.lvn.2.4.x86_64.rpm

I used rpm -ivh and I believe these 2 RPMs are installed now. Got success message. I did not use yum, I hope that is OK.

However, I am not sure I understand the next steps. I would appreciate your help on this.

[Firewing1]

mount the NTFS and Fat32 drives:
mkdir /media/WinXP-1
mkdir /media/WinXP-2
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /media/WinXP-1
mount -t ntfs /dev/sda2 /media/WinXP-2
And try accessing those files in /media/WinXP-#. maybe that can help you get a backup

As far as the MBR, it's fine because WinXP starts loading. The autochk.exe file is missing. I'd say either 1) Re-install Windows and then re-install GRUB, or 2) simply delete Windows.
Firewing1

[jim]

when you boot into Windows

open a the run dialog and type msconfig

click the boot tab
uncheck the autochk.exe

[Firewing1]

Did some quick google's for you, came up with this:
SUMMARY: use safe mode, remove a "hotfix" that causes this
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic7746.html

SUMMARY: SAme thing as your problem here
http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=6366

Firewing1