Trouble with Grub

[netcracker]

HI folks...it's been long time I posted.....
anyway heres my problem..

I installed Red Hat 9 on a different hardisk then the windows hardisk......
so I have Red Hat on hd0 and Windows on hd1

The problem is that GRUB is not loading windows...it just shows me the following message and does nothing

Booting "DOS"
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1


Does anybody know how to solve the prob......

[mehulved]

Post contents of your /etc/fstab file and output of

su
fdisk -l

I doubt this is cos windows is on slave drive. AFAIK, windows gives trouble when installed on a slave, it needs to be on the master.

[mediator]

It seems pretty ok to me. Did u install rh9 and windows one by one? I mean on one hardisk rh9 separately and then on 2nd one windows separately, and then combined the 2 with rh9 disk as primary boot hdd?? Also can u post the content of "boot.ini" in windows partition?

Neways install FC5, forget rh9, its old!

[netcracker]

I Installed Linux On a primary hardisk keeping Windows on a secondary hardisk......so Grub is installed in the primary partition..i.e.the Linux partition....Grubs alredy detected dos and gave me the menu and all but it is not booting into windows

When I remove the linux primary..the pc simply boots to windows...but why is grub not booting windows......???

[mehulved]

Post those two things I asked for.

[praka123]

post ur ``fdisk -l``then only can find ur disk order..then u can edit to correct disk no. for window$

[mediator]

Originally Posted by netcracker

When I remove the linux primary..the pc simply boots to windows...but why is grub not booting windows......???

When u remove the primary hardisk right !!!!?? As I thought, it seems u installed windows on one hardisk (previously primary) and then made it secondary and then installed linux on a new primary hardisk! Right? If so, ur windows boot sequence exists on MBR of secondary hdd! It shud exist on primary one.

I guess the only thing u can do is repair windows installation, from XP cd. Dont worry about the grub, it can be recovered easily!

Neways to verify my point Please do the following :
1. If ur Linux hdd is A and windows hdd is B. Then check from BIOS boot sequence. It shud have A in the hdd option!
2. Change that option to B and then boot, if it boots in windows , then the point is verified!
3. If so, undo the step 2. U need to repair Xp then as I said above!

NEways still post the output of files asked in above posts!

[~Phenom~]

I have discovered a serious bug in RH9 .
Goto mouse settings and click ok.
it ruins ur system.
It ruined mine and then I checked it on many other computers and they all gone crazy.

[praka123]

RH9 is an old distro.try using newer distros like debian etch or ubuntu edgy(coming) with linux-2.6 kernel... regarding bug...RH9 service period is long over.

but what crashed/i cant understand..pls elaborate...in which Desktop env GNOME or kde...may be we can help u....

[~Phenom~]

I saw it in GNOME , the mouse left button seems to be pressed all the time. wherever u move the mouse on desktop , everything gets opened on its own.

[praka123]

it for sure seems to be related to XF86 related bug or an interface bug....BTW i have no idea how ur mouse settings looks like as it is quiet sometime since i used RH9... if u post this problem in http://linuxquestions.org
their RedHat section ....perhaps a solution may come....

[~Phenom~]

@prakash kerala , I have posted it on linux questions forum , lets see what happens....

[netcracker]

Hey...Guyz..thx for all the help...RH9 is Old...so I got SUSE10 and Debian3.1...uh which to choose....i am not a total newbe...sowat to choose...???

@Phenom:Exactly...I was geting the same mouse problem...iT used to work for few moments then it used to get stuck...

@Mediator:Exactly....You hit the bull's eye....Actually tht's wat I want to do...I want to install Linux and grub in the same harddrive and windows on another...I am tring this using SUSE now...I hope grub works properly now....

Actually I want this way because I don't want my Windows partition to screw up...I want it such tht..when I remove the linux hardisk PC should boot without any trace of Linux.....

[mediator]

Originally Posted by netcracker

Actually I want this way because I don't want my Windows partition to screw up...I want it such tht..when I remove the linux hardisk PC should boot without any trace of Linux.....

If u want it that way then u'll have a terrible time. For above to work, u'll have to keep changin the "primary boot hdd" from BIOS each time to use different OS.

See dude, u shud have a preference as to which OS u want to keep always and which OS(hdd) u'll be removing frequently!
If ur a windows maniac, then I suggest u to keep windows on primary hdd, and Linux on secondary so that u can unplug secondary hdd anytime. For this to work, u'll have to go for 3rd party boot programs that work from WIndows. Others may shed more light on how to use 3rd party boot programs.

If u want Linux OS(hdd) to be primary, then ur above setup was OK as removing windows hdd will still show grub (boot program) and u'll be able to boot into LInux without any obstructions.

So I wud advice not to keep installing OS on different hdd one by one in isolation with other hardisks. Neways why do want to do that?

[mehulved]

Grub for windows exists. Well you need to search around. I have posted it previously in this section. I haven't used it myself so dunno how stable is it and whether it performs well.

[netcracker]

Is there no other way by which I can boot with a normal linux grub....??Is there anyway by which maybe I can change the boot.ini file and make windows boot??I think I read somewhere that this is possible...To trick into windows to think that it is the primary hardisk....

I wanted it this way because I wanted to be able to boot with any single hardisk into the respective Os.....Anyway just a curiosity if thissceme can work......

So..that means the only way to install is to install in the same Hard drive as windows no.....

[mediator]

Originally Posted by netcracker

To trick into windows to think that it is the primary hardisk....

Well that might be possible, never heard of it though! U may google, find the answer and tell us all here if u succeed in implementing it! Neways in mah opinion, the best is to partition the primary hdd in four parts and then Install windows on first partition,linux(root) on second partition, swap on third and make 4th Fat32/NTFS/whateva. The secondary hdd can be used perfectly then to backup data, store mp3s and videos and share nething between Linux and windows!

Neways its upto u and how u wanna take care of ur system!

[eddie]

Since you are not booting Windows from Primary hard disk, you will need to map the windows drive as the primary one.

I am an old fashioned guy and still use LILO for boot purposes but LILO uses "boot-as" and "map-drive" options to achieve this thing and I am quite sure that GRUB must be having something like this as well. Read the man pages for GRUB and look for something like this...there is no way a boot loader can live without mapping.

[gary4gar]

Originally Posted by tech_your_future

Grub for windows exists. Well you need to search around. I have posted it previously in this section. I haven't used it myself so dunno how stable is it and whether it performs well.

i tried it, its called wingrub
used for installing linux from hard drive, does a fine job