Fedora 9 and Vista (Vista Installed 1st)

[ryptyde]

This is taken from the grub.conf of my Acer laptop single hard drive dual booting with Fedora 9 and Vista. There is a recovery partition also.

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,2)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.25.11-97.fc9.i686)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.25.11-97.fc9.i686 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.25.11-97.fc9.i686.img
title Fedora (2.6.25.10-86.fc9.i686)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.25.10-86.fc9.i686 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.25.10-86.fc9.i686.img
title Vista Basic
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

.

[losled]

One other thing that may be worth mentioning. I decided to install grub to the MBR to see what happens. (By the way is there a difference in setting up grub vs install grub)

EX: I from what I understand installed grub using grub-install --root-directory=/boot /dev/sda3
I setup grub using the commands below... I guess its the equivalent to installing and configuring. Anyway onwards...

grub

(takes me to a grub prompt)

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

(hd0,2)

Then i set it as:

grub> root (hd0,2)

Then the setup command... Now I did this two different ways and got two different results. The first time I used the specific partition instead of the MBR

grub> setup (hd0,2)

This resulted in the grub menu coming up when I boot up (grub with prompt and ability to type commands).
**Also remember I installed grub to /dev/sda3 as mentioned in the previous post** Now when I boot up what partition actually gets loaded or a better way to put it is what partition is the grub menu looking to for the load files. The problem just seems to be that it can't find the vmlinuz files (which I know are on /dev/sda3 in the /boot directory). So let me make sure I am not making a stupid conclusion here... The /boot directory is different from the boot partition I created.

df -h proves that

the root directory (/) is in /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00

and the /boot partition is on /dev/sda3

When i boot into the rescue dvd and chroot /mnt/sysimage df -h shows me both of these but when I am looking in /boot directory, that directory is on the (/) partition if I am understanding this correctly. If not this may be where I am fundamentally confused and need immediate help lol.

Now something weird happened at this point. At least I think it was at this point... I've done so much its hard to keep track.
Anywho it seems that a second boot directory was created inside the current boot directory

So in /boot I now have another boot directory:
which has subdirectory grub, which contains all the same files as /boot/grub **with the exception of a grub.conf file**

I fear I am making a mess of all of this and I have reached a stopping point as I have way too many tabs open in Firefox from searching all over the web. I have exhausted all my resources and at this point.

[losled]

Well now I think I've really jacked it all up

I thought for a second I had it figured out.
I added the .i686 to the kernel line in grub.conf and it got all the way to the Booting the kernel Reading all physical volumes This may take a while....

Then

No volume groups found
Volume group "VolGroup00" not found
Unable to access resume device (/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01)
mount: could not find filesystem '/dev/root'
setuproot: moving /dev failed: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /proc: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: No such file or directory
Mount failed for selinuxfs on /selinx: No such file or directory
switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory

Man I really hope I just pointed something in the wrong place... Hands off for me until I hear back from someone with a bit more knowledge than me on this one.

[glennzo]

Solution: Get the gparted iso and burn a CD. Boot from it and delete the LVM partitions (all partitions except the NTFS partition and your recovery partition, if there is one). Now create an empty partition for Fedora and a swap if you can spare the space, 2x your system ram. You can get away without the swap if necessary. Boot the Fedora install DVD and when you get to the partitioning section choose the new empty space and format it to EXT3. Get away from the LVM stuff. Fedora will install GRUB and you should be good to go. It really should be that simple.

Is there any chance that the boot partition on the hard disk is somehow locked?

[losled]

Man when Vista is involved anything is possible. Its my wife's laptop and she wanted to keep her Vista just in case she needed it but I am gonna see if I can talk her into letting me get rid of Vista all together and I can set her up with an image using VirtualBox if needed

Thanks again.

[ryptyde]

Originally Posted by losled

Man when Vista is involved anything is possible. Its my wife's laptop and she wanted to keep her Vista just in case she needed it but I am gonna see if I can talk her into letting me get rid of Vista all together and I can set her up with an image using VirtualBox if needed

Thanks again.

I have done several Fedora install to Laptops with Vista installed and it was just a matter of using Vistas disk management tool. Shrink the ntfs partition leaving enough unallocated freespace eg: 20GB and for me I have used 3 different install methods that have worked
1. LiveCD install
2. LiveUSB install
3. DVD install
haven't done a net install so can't help there. So anyway when the Fedora installer gets to the part where it ask where to install choose "freespace" and let it do its default setup.

I have done LiveCD installs within 15 minutes of clicking the "Install to Hard Drive" icon and logging in to the installed desktop and yes I made it a point to time the process.

[glennzo]

losled, ryptyde is right. This is exactly how I turned my Vista laptop into a quad boot machine. I don't know why but I totally forgot about using the Disk Management tools. I was worried that I'd hose Vista but after the fact Vista booted with no problem.