Dual boot Fed 8 Wiin XP- each on it's own hard drive

rogerdw · #1 21st February 2008, 04:48 PM

I am running Fedora 8 which is installed on my primary hard disk. I also have Win XP which has been installed on another hard drive (it was installed as a primary drive as well.)

Is there any way to have both drives on the same machine and dual boot without having to re install either system?

If not is it possible to put both drives in the machine and re-install XP on the slave drive without messing up the Fedora drive?

TThanks in advance.

***bob*** · #2 21st February 2008, 05:03 PM

Sure: http://www.jplawrence.us/mywiki/DualBootLinux

kevmif · #3 21st February 2008, 10:29 PM

All you gotta do is chuck the XP hard drive in and edit your /boot/grub.conf file to add a boot entry for the XP drive.

It will probably be something like

Title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

If you get stuck let us know.

stoat · #4 21st February 2008, 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevmif

It will probably be something like

Title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Hello kevmif,

Actually, that's what usually doesn't work. And that is the point of the linked article in the post #2. Whenever XP doesn't boot from the GRUB menu and is being shown in grub.conf as installed in a non-first drive like in your example, that is when the map command is needed to remap the XP drive to first. Then XP will boot normally. See the GRUB manual for more on the map command. Here is a correct (and traditional) example from a grub.conf with XP installed in the first partition of the second drive...

Code:

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

Another example with XP installed in the first partition of the third drive...

Code:

title XP
map (hd0) (hd2)
map (hd2) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd2,0)
chainloader +1

And so on.

P.S.: To keep the grub.conf clutter to a minimum, the makeactive command is not needed in grub.conf for XP. See footnote 6 for makeactive in the GRUB manual.

rogerdw · #5 22nd February 2008, 07:06 AM

Code:

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

I added the above code to the grub.config file and rebooted. The boot menu came up and shows XP listed. When I select XP I get a Buffer I/O error on sdb1 block (not asure hwat block as the message disappears really quickly and then the screen goes blank and everything seems to freeze.

Could ther second drive be sdb1? ( Just guessing!)

***bob*** · #6 22nd February 2008, 11:36 AM

Sign into a terminal as full root (su -); yes the space and minus sign are important; and then post the results of 'fdisk -l'. Also post your current /boot/grub/grub.conf . Chances are that there's just a partition error here.

rogerdw · #7 22nd February 2008, 05:51 PM

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000791d7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1275 10241406 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 1276 14023 102398310 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 14024 14154 1052257+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

# 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 (hd0,0)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda1
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=15
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.23.15-137.fc8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.23.15-137.fc8 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.23.15-137.fc8.img
title Fedora (2.6.23.14-115.fc8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.23.14-115.fc8 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.23.14-115.fc8.img
title XP
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

Is it safe to assume that the problem is caused by nit having a boot partition? Is this a bad thing? When I installed Fedora I specified a separate /home partion to supposedly make it easier to preserve my data.

Seems to me that I could change the map lines in XP to /dev/sda or variation and make it work?

I'm a newbie in case you had'nt guessed!

Thanks

***bob*** · #8 22nd February 2008, 05:58 PM

The problem is ....where's sdb???? Looks like your Windows drive is not being recognized at all. You should check your BIOS to see if it's showing up there. One possible cause would be that these are on IDE cables and that you've got to set up 'master' and 'slave' positions. You should open the case and check to see that the power cords and cables are correctly plugged in and that if your jumpers on the drives are properly set up. If they're both on the same IDE cable, one should be set to Master and the other to Slave.

rogerdw · #9 22nd February 2008, 10:11 PM

I re did the jumpers and got the drive recognized in BIOS. When I try to boot into Fedora or Linux I get buffer input erro again then everything freezes.

I booted into Fedora then powered on the second drive and did the fdisk -l. Up pops a Cannont mount volume window. Input/output error Failed to read $MFTMirr:Input/output error Failed to mount '/dev/sdb1': Input/output error NTFS is either inconsistent, or you have hardware faults

Does that give a hint?

stoat · #10 23rd February 2008, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rogerdw

Does that give a hint?

It makes me wonder about the health of the XP system or drive (funny similar example). Has it been working and in use until today, or was it brought out of storage for this? Your first post made it sound like it may have been in storage for a while.

Either way, I would be tempted to try that XP drive by itself with the jumper set to master, on the primary IDE channel, first in BIOS. If it doesn't boot like that, you have work to do (Recovery Console, chkdsk, reinstall XP). But If it does boot okay that way, leave it alone. But before you power down, look in the XP Disk Management utility (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management) and examine the partitions. Make yourself some notes about the partition layout (primaries, extended, logicals), which partition is the XP system, which partition is the active partition. Even better, print the screen. Power down.

Next, reconnect the Fedora drive with the jumper set to master, on the secondary IDE channel (hopefully something will still reach to the optical drive), but enter BIOS setup on powerup and set this drive to first in BIOS. Exit setup and continue booting. I would hope for the GRUB menu which would still boot Fedora, but also boot XP now.

All of that sort of mimicks Jim's Wiki method referenced in post #2 above. But I have also done this with both IDE drives on the same cable. It is also known to work with two SATA drives. With nothing but respect for Jim, I have to say that the dual booting wiki needs a rewrite. It mishandles terms like master, slave, primary, secondary. In another thread here, I paraphrased it and tried to present a clearer version of it. If Fedora doesn't boot, tweaks to grub.conf and possibly /etc/fstab in linux rescue may get it back. Reinstalling GRUB may also be needed, but the system should be okay.

P.S.: My feelings will not be hurt if you decide against any of this. Just trying to help, and its my best guess for now.

***bob*** · #11 23rd February 2008, 12:26 AM

Well, as a single drive, you'd set the Windows drive to 'cable select' or 'single' as 'master' won't work without a 'slave'. Essentially, this is the way it SHOULD have worked: You had Windows installed on a single drive which has it's own mbr. Then you installed Fedora on a single drive (Windows unplugged) and again you have it's own mbr. That creates two, which should allow either drive to boot if you select the drive's boot order from the bios. That is, of course, a pain.

Well, you can dual-boot with grub, so you set your BIOS to boot the Fedora drive first. So, that's where the 'mapping' comes in. You're starting the mbr from the Fedora drive and then saying "hey, there's another drive...over THERE!; look at it and boot it!" Set up correctly, grub passes the boot over to the Windows bootloader and you then load windows

So, the first thing to do is to confirm that you've got the bios working right - both drives are identified, which you did do. Now, the next question is whether you've got both drives on the same IDE cable or on different ones. For instance, you could have one coupled to a CD-Rom and both the CD-Rom and the HD set as 'slave' or 'master' - won't work. If there's two drives on an IDE cable, whether it's a DVD-RW, CD-RW, hard drive or whatever, one's got to be master and the other's got to be slave. Personally, I always put both my hard drives on the same cable.

If you've seen your drives in the BIOS properly and the jumpers are set correctly and the connections are correct, well then it's the drive that might be borked. So, that's when you go to the manufacturer's site and download their testing tool and give it a good run through.

Hope this helps.

rjmort · #12 23rd February 2008, 01:39 AM

Have you tried using your computer's boot menu option? When it is booting up, hit the proper key (MSI boards are always F11). This brings up a menu that allows me to boot from any drive that is detected by the bios. If you can boot to either XP or Fedora, at least you know that your drives are functioning.