Hi dhesteban,
 
yeah, it's a pain. conventional wisdom is to install w2k FIRST then RH since the former is more "sensitive" to changes in bootup. If u r convinced and/or know that RH then w2k can be done, then u r more "expert" and as such don't need my 2cw ... wink
 
PS My experience is w2k first then RH is better and I can reinstall RH many times, if and when I want to (usu. when I s***wed up RH) wink wink
 
Avoid RH 8 though, it's NOT so stable. 7.3 and 9.0 is better. IMHO.
 
Cheers and have fun ! 8)
 
GreenHorn

Had a happily working Win2K system.
Installed Mandrake 9, but as usual it failed dismally to activate my ethernet card with DHCP and seemed to cause a long boot time, so I junked it.
Win 2K still OK.
Red Hat 9.1 arrived, thought I'd try it out.
Installed it choosing Grub as the bootloader. Install went OK. Rebooted
Can't find NTLDR.
 
Hmmmm.
 
Tried many things, Couldn't get it to work at all.
 
So, in frustration, booted from Win 2K CD, into recovery console and used fixboot command.
Rebooted, same problem, Can't find NTLDR.
Booted again with Win 2K CD in drive intending to use fixmbr, got boot from CD prompt, ignored it and up came Grub!!
Tried again, up came Grub again.
 
To cut a long story short, If I don't have the CD in the drive, I always get Can't find NTLDR.
If I do have the CD in the drive, I can choose to boot into Win2K setup by pressing a key to boot at the appropriate prompt, or I can leave it and Grub will come up.
From Grub I have two options, Redhat or Win2K, both come up fine. I have even installed the recovery console now in the Win2K boot menu and that works fine.
Going into Win2K shows that NTLDR, NTDETECT and boot.ini are all present in the root of the C\ drive.
The HD is partitioned
Primary NTFS Active (Win2K)
Extended (2 NTFS parts)
Primary EXT3 Redhat
Primary Swap
 
Can anyone explain to me what's going on here? Is Grub searching for NTLDR or vice versa, and why does it only work from the CD, not from the NTLDR on the hard drive? OR is something else entirely going on.
Yes, I could probably fix this with an FDISK /MBR on the drive, but I'd like to understand what is going on here as it's likely to happen again if I reinstall Grub.
 
... and Red Hat did set up my Ethernet card correctly, did set up my internet connection first time and did connect to a W2K server based printer first time. Mandrake never did that for me. So I DO want to get this config running!!
 
Thanks.

Hi rapple2,
 
CW (Conventional wisdom / more accurately D "RHLx.x Bible") says
 
choose [first sector of Boot Partition] IF YOU ALREADY have a boot loader ... so do u have one already B4 u inst RH9 ? If so, then may b choose this instead of [master boot record]... looks like yr basic boot seq had been "sc***ed"... Now see if u can set that back with a reinstallation of RH (try "upgrade" option). wink
 
I did the whole routine about 3 times (win2k then RH, sc***ed up and then try 2x more + combinations) cry ... I did note that keepiing ONLY ONE PRIMARY partition (for NTFS only) helps ) . Also, seems like u don't have a Boot partition ? May be that's the issue... wink
 
Not a guru, just sharing my personal exp. Hope it helped.
 
Cheers
GreenHorn p

Thanks for that. In fact I don't have a linux boot partition (/boot). I didn't create one, nor did Red Hat suggest one or create one through the standard options. As I understand it it's not necessary, merely a convenience sometimes for ultra-cautious multi-booters.
 
A small update, before I lose my Win2K completely.
Having failed to figure it out, I took a step further and used Win2K recovery console to issue the fixMBR command. ( I don't really understand what precisely this and fixboot do, I assumed that fixMBR would be equivalent to fdisk /MBR) Thus expecting everything to be either a) Fully fixed or Royally screwed I rebooted.
 
...Can't find NTLDR
fingers crossed, rebooted with setup CD in drive
Windws 2K boot sequence started up.
 
So...
having installed RH9.1 and GRUB I (as you so eloquently put it) screwdrivered my boot sequence. BUT by applying the recovery console commands I am now left with what appears to be a purely Microsoft boot sequence issue. The code on the MBR is attempting to load NTLDR. It isn't finding it and complains, but if the CD is available it's appears to be intelligent enough to look on all attached drives, finds one and goes. However NTLDR is on the C drive. ???
 
The only useful piece of info I've gleaned from Microsoft is that this error message means that the boot process can't find NTLDR or it's corrupt.
 
Q. Does GRUB modify or replace NTLDR in any way?
 
Of course, I don't have the W2K repair disks and I can't create them if the copy of NTLDR on C is suspect. Guess I'll have to build a 2nd W2K system to create the repair disks...
 
So, if you don't hear from me in the next couple of days, FDISK /MBR is different to recovery console fixmbr.

You don't need a /boot partition,
 
If 2k is booting alright, leave it. Let's see if we can't get Linux booting properly.
 
First up, download the Gentoo Stage 1 LiveCD. I suggest everyone get themselves a copy of this even if they don't plan on installing Gentoo as its only ~70Mb and makes a great troubleshooting aid.
 
Secondly, boot off the LiveCD and mount your Linux partition and activate your swap partition:
 

Code:

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentooswapon /dev/hda2

 
Next, chroot into your RH system by typing:
 

Code:

mount -o bind /proc /mnt/gentoo/procmount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/proc (if you use devfs)chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bashsource /etc/profile

 
Now you are "in" your RH environment, let's see about getting grub to work. First you need to install GRUB onto the mbr. To do that, type the following:
 

Code:

grub(grub will start with a command line, the next few commands have to be typed there)root hd(0,0)setup hd0quit

 
Next, we have to verify that grub.conf is in order. Now, I forget where RH place grub.conf, from memory they place it in /etc but it may also be in /boot/grub. Wherever it is, open it in a text editor and make sure it says something like this:
 

Code:

default 0timeout 30splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gztitle=Red Hat Linuxroot (hd0,0) kernel (hd0,0)/boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda3 title=Windows 2000rootnoverify (hd0,4) chainloader (hd0,4)+1

 
The kernel and root lines will almost certainly look different to this example so don't change them, just verify that they're there and pointed to the correct partitions (I'm fairly certain these would be correct for your setup but tbh, I still can't get my head around the way grub enumerates drives/partitions so get a second opinion to make sure). When it's correct, save the file.
 
To get out of the chrooted environment, type exit. Finally unmount all your partitions:
 

Code:

umount /mnt/gentoo/devumount /mnt/gentoo/procumount /mnt/gentoo

 
and then type reboot, remove the Gentoo LiveCD and GRUB should work perfectly.

Just 2 pieces of info
 
a. doing a "fdisk /mbr" will REMOVE (!!!) GRUB or LILO. Check out Appendix B of the RH
installation guide - a PDF downloadable fr the RH site.
 
b. doing a "fdisk /mbr" DOES NOT Gurantee that your Win2K will be restored fine. I tried
and FAILED... so...
 
After numerous tries, I noted (and agreed with RH IG) that Win2K boot seq is v. sensitive and a tiniest screw up could be disastrous !! I lost data files & settings since some of my files cannot be entirely backed up. So my suggestion is pls proceed with care !
 
Try dl the RH IG (pdf) above. It does say in detail the "safest" way to dual-boot nicely. Only thing they cannot say (or guarantee) are that the DRIVERS will work properly ... Hv 2 NB from same vendor, about the same config but 1 is mute while the other sings ... so
 
Hope that helped. Cheers and good luck !!
 
wink

Thing is, he's got Win2k booting already or at least thats the impression I got from his last post. His problem then was how to boot Linux again. For that, the method I posted should work. I know, because it's virtually the exact same method used to install a bootloader on Gentoo and I've done that at least twice. I've also used to method to resurrect two Debian installs so I know it works outside Gentoo.
 
Also, to add, I tried fdisk /mbr on Win2k once myself and found that it didn't touch NTLDR afterward. What does affect it is programs that overwrite the DOS volume boot sector, like the DOS/9x sys.com program. What I've surmised from this is that NTLDR is embedded in the DOS VBR and doesn't rely totally on the MBR. However, my boot partition was formatted as FAT32 (a relic of a dual boot excerise that has long been redeundant by the installation of Windows XP on my system) so it may be completely different when NTFS partitions are brought into play.