RH9 and WinXP

[plainzwalker]

Okay, I'm trying to learn linux, so i installed suse 8.2/kde on my laptop.. Then decided to install RH9 on my main computer. I successfully installed it (wasn't too hard since it was pretty easy) and I was testing it out when I decided to reboot into windows to finish up some stuff for work. Well...it didn't want to boot. It shows chainloader +1 and then tries to boot from the CD and then crashes..


Here are the contents of my grub.conf, device.map and menu.lst:


grub.conf:
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,6)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,6)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdb=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title DOS
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader +1


device.map:
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda


menu.lst
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,6)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,6)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdb=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title DOS
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader +1

I have 2 HDs broken down into the following partitions (copied from hardware browser):

Name: Size (MB) Type

/dev/hda
hda1 57232 Extended
hda5 9052 ntfs
hda7 102 ext3
hda8 15853 ext3
hda6 22544 ntfs
hda9 761 linux-swap
unpartitioned 8927 free space

/dev/hdc
hdc2 9570 Extended
hdc5 9570 ntfs
hdc1 9523 fat32



Hopefully this will be enough information.. This is all very frustrating and I can figure it out. I would just wipe all the drives, except there are things that I can't replace and would need to get into windows to backup before I wiped the drives.


Thanks a Million in advance,
Jeff

[dysharmonic]

There's a way out of this by fixing the MBR so that NTloader will be used to load WinXP instead of GRUB.

Boot off the XP CD, choose recovery and give the command fixmbr at the prompt. You'll loose any entry to boot SuSE, well, you never had it before installing SuSE anyway :D

If you made a bootdisk during SuSE installation, boot off it and give the 'dd if=/' command to copy the boot sector onto XP root drive.

[psi42]

Originally posted by plainzwalker

title DOS
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader +1


That doesn't make sense. It is saying that windows is installed on /dev/hda6, which is odd as windows must be installed on a primary partition.

To avoid having to boot up the system, change menu.lst, and then reboot every time to check the configuration, it's probably better to use the grub command line interface until you get it figured out.

When you get to the grub screen, press "c" for a command prompt. You should see something like

grub>

From there, try:

rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot


If that doesn't work, try all numbers (hd0,0) through (hd0,8) in the rootnoverify command.

Once you get it booting, then edit menu.lst and change it to the setting you used to get it to work. :)


good luck,
~psi42


EDIT:
/dev/hda
hda1 57232 Extended
hda5 9052 ntfs
hda7 102 ext3
hda8 15853 ext3
hda6 22544 ntfs
hda9 761 linux-swap
unpartitioned 8927 free space

Wait a minute...what partition is XP installed on????

AFAIK it must be on a primary partition. But you don't appear to have any primary partitions... ???

[dysharmonic]

XP can be on a logical partition I guess...

[plainzwalker]

I'm out on a business trip right now..but before I left I did rebuild on the mbr and i got windows to boot when i used the boot disk to boot linux it crashed. I can't remember the exact error message right now..

winxp is installed on hd1 partition 1....

thanks for the help, ill post more on sunday night when i get back.

thanks
jeff

[DMR]

Originally posted by plainzwalker
winxp is installed on hd1 partition 1....Not according to what you posted earlier. Your partition information shows hda1 to be an Extended partition, in which you have two NTFS Logical partitions (hda5 and hda6).

As other have said, it's kind of strange that you have no Primary parititions on hda...
:confused:

Grub's drive numbering starts at 0, not 1, so if hda5 is truly where XP is installed, your rootnoverify entry should be (hd0,4).

[plainzwalker]

well...okay, i reinstalled the mbr using a xp restore disk...then I reinstalled RH9 without a bootloader and just made a boot disk and it seems to be working fine...as for the partitions and stuff...well im not too sure what to do about all that, i don't know why it is the way it is...ill have to look into that and maybe do a complete reinstall or something.


thanks a lot for your time and all the help,
jeff