Hello
I have found that i do not have a /boot partition. Due to this I am not able to boot into windows Xp. I am comfortably logging into redhat 9.

Here is the grub i have in /boot/grub/grub.conf

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd0,2)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,2)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8bigmem)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8bigmem ro root=LABEL=LINUX hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8bigmem.img
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Can anyone suggest a way to get into windows xp?

danleff! thanks a lot man! mission accomplished. i only change the map of hd1 to hd2 where hd1 is my data drive and hd2 is my fc3. GOD BLESS!!!

hello,

1. Used Fixmbr and Fdisk /mbr but the cursor blinks after restart.
2. Edited grub.conf, menu.lst and even the partition table but was left with not much sucess.

My menu.lst

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd0,2)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,2)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8bigmem)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8bigmem ro root=LABEL=LINUX hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.20-8bigmem.img
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Output for Fdisk -l


Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 3273 26286088+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 3273 3336 506520 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda3 3336 4865 12285000 83 Linux
/dev/hda5 3273 3336 506488+ 82 Linux swap


/etc/fstab file

LABEL=LINUX / ext3 defaults 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom1 /mnt/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0

device.map file

(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda

Do suggest if any idea strikes you!!

I tried to reinstall the grub bootloader but i am missing disc 2 of redhat9. Can you suggest any location where i can get an iso image?

Is there any way of editing the boot.ini either from DOS or linux?

thanks

"I have found that i do not have a /boot partition. Due to this I am not able to boot into windows Xp. I am comfortably logging into redhat 9. "

You do not need a /boot partition to boot into XP. You apparently wrote Grub to the Master Boot Record (MBR), so there is no /boot partition.

If you want to dump RedHat and just use Windows, then you use both the fixboot and fixmbr commands in the Windows recovery console, after booting the XP installation disk. Otherwise, if you fix the mbr via the Windows recovery console, you will lose your ability to boot Linux, effectively writing over Grub in the MBR.

I would stop trying to add things to the windows drive, such as NTLR. This is not necessary.

"Edited grub.conf, menu.lst and even the partition table but was left with not much sucess. "

What do you mean that you altered the partition table? What exactly did you do?

Are you currently able to boot into RedHat?


GX1 system hard drive installations are a little different. Go to the bios and see if the drive is recognized correctly.

What did you set the hard drive jumper to?

On these systems, you may have to set the hard drive jumper to cable select, for the drive to be seem properly.

Realize that in these legacy systems, just switching hard drives does not always work.

"Is there any way of editing the boot.ini either from DOS or linux? "

From RedHat, no, as you do not have write support for NTFS volumes in a stock install of RedHat. Why do you want to do this?

Hello,

I have used both the fixboot and fixmbr commands in the windows recovery console. After restart the cursor just blinks over there and doesn't do much after that. I am having linux boot disk, so risked a try.

"What do you mean that you altered the partition table? What exactly did you do?"

I have followed a post earlier that claims that Red hat installer alters the hard disk geometry due to which windows is unable to boot. So I re-entered the partition table by hand in the non-interactive mode using fdisk. I tried to alter the geometry so that GRUB could find the windows location.

sfdisk -d /dev/hda | sfdisk --no-reread -H255 /dev/hda

I re-entered the partition table, it didnt create any effect on GRUB.

Currently I am able to boot into Linux using GRUB.

"What did you set the hard drive jumper to? "

Hard drive is recognised as auto in the BIOS and the jumpers are set to cable-select.

I knew that i cannot edit NTFS volumes from Redhat but found posts claiming that they can do. So i wanted to edit the boot.ini by adding an entry of linux, in turn making it as the bootloader. It was just a try.

Thanks

The boot corruption issue, I believe was only with Fedora Core 2 and fixed in subsequent versions.

See this report. Did you find such an article relative to RedHat?

Since the Windows bootloader is not working and referencing the boot.ini file, this is no good for now. What you would have done, if you could boot into XP, was place the Linux boot image on the top level NTFS partition of the Windows drive. See this article or this one as examples.

Hello Danleff
The report which mentions about resetting the partition table is the one which i followed. I didn't find a similar site for redhat.

I am not able to boot into Windows XP so editing boot.ini does not seem attainable at this time. During the recovery console of windows, i tried editing the boot.ini file but I could not find it in the C:/Windows directory. Is there any way that i can find the boot.ini file?

Is there any way I can reinstall Windows Xp without formatting the drive but recreating the boot? Fixboot and Fixmbr are resulting in a blinking cursor. Is there any way out of this?

thanks

Hello
I have made a fresh installation of windows without formatting the drive. After reboot the cursor still blinks. Doesn't a fresh installtion recreate a boot file?

thanks

Hello Danleff
Can you suggest any ideas so that i can boot into my windows XP?

Thanks

Was the original windows installation a pre-loaded version of Windows, or did you install it from a full Windows XP disk.

Generally, in these legacy systems (Compaq and Dell), this is a problem, as the drives are set up in a unique way in a preloaded XP installation.

What is the drive jumpered at and cabled for? Primary Master, or cable select?

Are you sure that you cabled the drive on the Optiplex correctly?

If you can boot into RedHat, try to post the drive, as it is seen by Linux, by issuing the following command, as root user, in a console window;

fdisk -l

I forget, but you may have to do;

/sbin/fdisk -l

That's the letter small case "L", not the number 1.

What does the drive show in the bios as assigned as, primary master?

Hello Danleff

1. The original version of windows is from a full Windows XP disk.

2. The hard drive is set as cable_select with the jumpers.
3. This is the /sbin/fdisk -l from Linux

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 3273 26286088+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/hda2 3273 3336 506520 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/hda3 3336 4865 12285000 83 Linux
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/hda5 3273 3336 506488+ 82 Linux swap

4. In the Bios the drive is set to auto. This is the only drive on the machine.

thanks

Opps! I missed page 2 of this thread.

But, your partition table seems corrupt. I don't know a way around this.

Your problem is not the boot,ini file, but the MBR of the drive and the changes you did to the geometry.

Unfortunately, one fix may not work now, but let's try it.

Go into the bios and change the detection of the drive from "auto" to "LBA."

See what happens on boot of either RedHat and/or Windows via Grub. I'm a little lost here, are you booting grub via a boot disk, or from the hard drive?

Hello Danleff
I tried to change the hard drive detection from auto, but there isn't any option for LBA. I read that old Dell machines won't have an option for LBA.

I am able to boot through Grub. But when i reboot after doing a fixmbr using win98 boot disk I get "Missing Operating System" error. In this scenario, I am taking the help of a linux boot disk to enter into Redhat. If i do a "grub-install <device>"
I am getting grub bootloader working again.

thanks

hello Danleff
Is there any way to access(read and write) NTFS partition from Linux?

thank you

Yes there is. Take a look at the Linux NTFS Project.

Please, read the instructions and linlks on how to do it. Then post any problems that you may run into.