Vista won't boot up now

anthonyfg · #1 8th December 2008, 01:41 AM

I installed F10 off of cds onto a separate partition and I selected the first partition for the bootloader I think. Now when it boots to windows, it brings up the recovery screen and nothing I do can get it to boot short of reinstalling windows and then having to reinstall all my programs. Is there anything I can do to get windows to boot or what did I do wrong?

stoat · #2 8th December 2008, 02:02 AM

This right here...

Quote:

Originally Posted by anthonyfg

Now when it boots to windows, it brings up the recovery screen...

Strongly suggests that you are wrong about this...

Quote:

Originally Posted by anthonyfg

I selected the first partition for the bootloader I think.

Hello anthonyfg,

So, does Fedora boot? If it does, open a terminal and post the results of these commands...

Code:

su
cat /boot/grub/grub.conf
/sbin/fdisk -l

anthonyfg · #3 8th December 2008, 02:06 AM

[root@localhost anthony]# cat /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 (hd0,4)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda5
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=1
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,4)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.27.5-117.fc10.x86_64)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.x86_64 ro root=UUID=0b849d9e-d56b-4f03-ac81-3ff3d133ffaa rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.x86_64.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

stoat · #4 8th December 2008, 02:10 AM

Okay. Now the other command, too. See, I suspect that (hd0,0) is not the partition with the Vista boot loader files. It happens all the time. The fdisk output may give a clue or at least some possibilities to guess at. My first guess will be the partition on (hd0) that is marked active (boot).

anthonyfg · #5 8th December 2008, 02:12 AM

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x73908785

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 2030 16305943+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 2031 75215 587851776 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 75216 75240 200812+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 75241 77826 20764672 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 75241 77535 18432000 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 77536 77825 2329393+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

anthonyfg · #6 8th December 2008, 02:16 AM

thanks for the help stoat, I am proficient in programming and stuff like that but horrible at doing this kind of stuff. Undergrad CS major at UC Davis. What can I do to get windows to boot correctly if the problem is what you think?

stoat · #7 8th December 2008, 02:17 AM

Thanks. See what I mean? The second partition is the active partition. It's very likely the partition with the Vista boot loader files. Try opening the grub.conf for editing...

Code:

su
gedit /boot/grub/grub.conf

And then change that "Other" section at the end to look like this...

Code:

title Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

Save the file. Reboot. See what happens now.

anthonyfg · #8 8th December 2008, 03:53 AM

Awesome that totally worked, I wish I had asked the first time when I did it, but instead I reinstalled vista and now it takes vista a lot longer to login, there is black screen for a while before it shows the desktop and a cursor is visible, do you have vista? is this normal?
Thanks for the help!
Anthony

anthonyfg · #9 8th December 2008, 03:56 AM

Oh one more question, I made a swap partition, what is that?

stoat · #10 8th December 2008, 04:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anthonyfg

...now it takes vista a lot longer to login, there is black screen for a while before it shows the desktop...

Well, here is what I think about that. GRUB is your boot loader now having replaced the Vista boot code in the master boot record (nothing bad about that). And you have Vista set as the default OS in grub.conf (see the default command line). So now when you boot your computer and are sitting there waiting for Vista to come up, different stuff than what you are used to is going on (GRUB is booting up). That, plus the time delay (see the timeout command line in grub.conf) may account for the delay you are experiencing.

A swap partition is a special partition that your Fedora system will use to temporarily store chunks of memory when it is very busy and the physical memory is not adequate for everything going on at the time (sort of). It is also used to save memory to disk when the computer hibernates. People's opinions about how big it should be and whether it is even necessary are all over the place. Because of what I just said it does, my opinion is that it is necessary and should be at least as large as the physical RAM. When RAM gets huge, my opinion gets uncertain (I only have 1 GB RAM and lots of HD space so the decision is easy for me).

anthonyfg · #11 8th December 2008, 04:19 AM

Thanks for explaining everything for me, I really appreciate the help!
Anthony

Sigsterrr · #12 2nd February 2009, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stoat

Thanks. See what I mean? The second partition is the active partition. It's very likely the partition with the Vista boot loader files. Try opening the grub.conf for editing...

Code:

su
gedit /boot/grub/grub.conf

And then change that "Other" section at the end to look like this...

Code:

title Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

Save the file. Reboot. See what happens now.

JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW YOU ARE GOD. Thanks a million. I have been away from linux for about 5 years and decided to give it another go. That little change saved my house from alot of damage. I was trying to figure out what to break first. Thanks again. I can't believe SAINT isn't free anymore... :-)