Dual boot, "GRUB Loading stage 2..." error.

[longman]

Here one more newbie comes, i have seen many guys have similar problems, but unfortunately none of the hints solves the problem.

I have a PC with two harddrives (and motherboard is ASUS P4P800-X, no options for S-ATA besides turning it into the P-ATA+S-ATA and some more variations like that.),

one is primary IDE drive with Windows XP istalled before,
another one is SATA drive with Fedora Core 4 istalled just a short time ago.

after the first instalation (with the grub istalled into hda MBR) i got the following problem: there was just a blank screen with an error that

NTDLR file is missing
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

after that i was looking what could be the problem, and i found a thread with the hint: http://www.fedorajim.homelinux.com/?q=node/2. it has brought me somewhere, now i have a new trouble with this, it gives me an error like: "GRUB Loading stage 2..". Here i stopped and ask for your help, any help is appreciated very much....

Just in case here is the partition table that i have.

--------------------

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 79656 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 69456 35005603+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2 69456 79656 5140800 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 69456 79656 5140768+ b W95 FAT32

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 14 14528 116591737+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 14529 14593 522112+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
-------------------

i am a bit afraid to post this, it seems there are really a lot of similar posts on the issue, but it really didn't feet my trouble that i would solve it, i still stay on this "stage 2" message...

[thugpoet22]

i've recieved that same problem GRUB stage 2 and i realized that it would always happen when i had something plugged in at boot like my thumb drive or my ipod. when i took them out it worked fine. So if you have liike a external hard drive or a ipod or a thumb drive just take those out when the system boots. I hope this helps

[longman]

no nothing is plugged in that i could take out and therefore solve the problem... unfortunately...

but now, if i choose my (fourth master sata) sda disk i BIOS as the first one and the hda as the second one and then there i choose an option to boot: windows xp, i still get this "ntldr is missing" message.

so, the problem is still this "grub loading stage 2" error, while the IDE hda harddisk is set as the first one.

[Firewing1]

That's an odd one. Try re-installing GRUB -- And please post output of

cat /boot/grub/device.map

Firewing1

[foxmuldar]

i just had a problem almost the same as you guys did, i have had FC4 on a dual boot with winxp for a while now, but it just started to give me this error....GRUB READ ERROR...or something like that. Cansomeone please help a newbie?

Thanks in advance....

[longman]

That's an odd one. Try re-installing GRUB -- And please post output of code

[root@localhost ~] cat /boot/grub/device.map
# this map was generated by anaconda
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/sda
you have mail in /var/spool/mail/root

Please, how to reisntall GRUB?

[foxmuldar]

[root@localhost Muldar]# cat /boot/grub/device.map
# this device map was generated by anaconda
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda

[Firewing1]

There you go -- GRUB isn't configured for your Windows drive and therefore it's not working.
For starters, try

su -
grub-install /dev/hda

for foxmuldar, and for longman try

su -
grub-install /dev/sda

And reboot. If it still doesn't work, then can you (both? ) please post the output of

su -
fdisk -l

and i'll show you how to modify your GRUB configuration.

[foxmuldar]

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -1
fdisk: invalid option -- 1

Usage: fdisk [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK Change partition table
fdisk -l [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK List partition table(s)
fdisk -s PARTITION Give partition size(s) in blocks
fdisk -v Give fdisk version
Here DISK is something like /dev/hdb or /dev/sda
and PARTITION is something like /dev/hda7
-u: give Start and End in sector (instead of cylinder) units
-b 2048: (for certain MO disks) use 2048-byte sectors

[Firewing1]

in fdisk -l, That's a "ell" (? it's hard spelling letters lol) -- as in the lowercase version of L.
So I take it the grub-install didn't work?
Firewing1

[foxmuldar]

ya know...it really is hard spelling letters...:-)

[root@localhost ~]# 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 1950 15663343+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 1951 4865 23414737+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 1951 4865 23414706 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hdb: 20.0 GB, 20020396032 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2434 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/hdb2 14 2434 19446682+ 8e Linux LVM

[Firewing1]

Alright. Do this:

su -
grub-install /dev/hda
gedit /boot/grub/device.map

and remove the contents of that file, replace it with:

# this device map was generated by anaconda
(fd0)     /dev/fd0
(hd0)     /dev/hda
(hd1)     /dev/hdb

Next, in edit /etc/grub.conf:

su -
gedit /etc/grub.conf

and add:

title Windows XP
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
        chainloader +1

Now reboot and try it out.
fyi, lomgman, don't do this. It won't work. Please post the info needed above and I'll give you your set of commands )
Firewing1

[foxmuldar]

[root@localhost ~]# grub-install /dev/hda
/dev/hdb1 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.

[Firewing1]

Hmmm..... It seems there's a hdb error. Make sure
1) hdb (primary slave) is enabled in BIOS
2) The wires connecting it (IDE / SATA) are OK
and try again.
Firewing1

[foxmuldar]

couldn't i just use the FC4 disc and re-install GRUB?