WinXP & Fedora Dualboot only boots to Windows: What am I doing wrong?

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Glendor

Diamond Member
Mar 23, 2000
3,911
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Disk1 (hda), two partitions, each 20gb.
Disk1, Part1 (hda1): NTFS, Windows Installed and working fine.
Disk1, Part2 (hda2): Fat32, Planned for Shared Storaged
disk2, (hdb), Fedora 5 install

GRUB installed during Fedora install

The computer boots only into WinXP, and does not give any option for booting to Fedora at all.

Am I overlooking something obvious? This is my first dualboot in years :eek:
 
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drag

Elite Member
Jul 4, 2002
8,708
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0
Do you get the grub boot prompt or any mention of grub at any point?
If the Linux installer asked to install the bootloader into the MBR did you say yes?

Maybe the Linux installer installed the bootloader into the second disk instead of the first one.. can your bios be used to select which drive it tries to boot off of?

If your using a LCD display sometimes it takes it a bit to switch resolutions and such and it blanks out for a split second or so.. I've had a machine were the lcd blanked out long enough that the grub timer timed out and it only barely flashed the grub stuff before booting using the default menu item.

It's possible to use a bootable cdrom like Knoppix to reconfigure or reinstall grub to get Linux to boot properly. Google around and you can find examples of people doing this.

Also in the past Fedora offered a 'rescue' cdrom along with it's iso sets that may be able to help.
 
G

Glendor

Diamond Member
Mar 23, 2000
3,911
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76
When installing Fedora, I selected the option to install GRUB, and even made Fedora my default OS. The "Other" OS it detected was Windows on hda1, and I renamed it "WinXP" during the GRUB configuration phase.

I did see a place in the bios to select the boot drive, and it does list two harddrives; I'll try that when I get home. I don't have an LCD (yet), but my CRT still has a delay when it boots. I'll look for a place to adjust the GRUB timeout.

Thanks for the advice,
Glendor...

 
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BigRigDriver

Golden Member
Jul 23, 2000
1,510
3
81
Check StartUp & Recovery under system properties in WinXP if there is a dual boot entry in it. I betchya its there, but by default its not selected.:)
 
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Glendor

Diamond Member
Mar 23, 2000
3,911
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76
Ah... I'll check that, but I didn't think the Windows boot options would be modified by GRUB. Of course, I'm probably wrong, and I'll sure check that when I get home. I going to update the Compaq bios this evening too. I noticed that it was last updated in 2001 :Q

Worse comes to worse, I may swap the harddrives, format, and reinstall both operating systems, just to rule out the posibility that the old 10GB drive Fedora is installed on is the problem.

Thanks for the help, and please keep the suggestions coming.

Glendor...
 
R

Robor

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
16,979
0
76
If you installed the Grub installer then the boot.ini in WinXP isn't going to do anything to help your booting problem.

I know when I installed Fedora Core 4 alongside Win2003 Server the system default booted to Windows. I don't remember an option to choose a default but I haven't installed FC5 yet.

Like drag said, maybe you're just missing the Grub splash screen. Next time you boot just start hitting an arrow key or something and see if you get the boot menu.
 
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Glendor

Diamond Member
Mar 23, 2000
3,911
0
76
Thanks for the advice everybody. I managed to get in working by reinstalling, and not 'tinkering' with the GRUB settings, I think I was inadvertently placing GRUB on the wrong partition. I'll see if can recreate the problem in the near future, when I install it on my main computer. I just don't have time to investigate further on this current project. Thanks again,

Glendor...
 
J

JohnBernstein

Banned
Mar 31, 2006
84
0
0
I managed to get in working by reinstalling!?!?!?!

What you reinstalling the everything. Time consuming, but will work,.... I guess.
 
J

JohnBernstein

Banned
Mar 31, 2006
84
0
0
'tinkering' with the GRUB settings,....
would have got things working in about two minutes,....
but oh well,... if you like reinstalling an OS,...
that's up to you.
 
G

Glendor

Diamond Member
Mar 23, 2000
3,911
0
76
It was important to figure out what I was doing wrong, and I did. It was also an oportunity to put it back on the intended 10GB drive (where I originally wanted), instead of the 2nd partiton of the 20GB drive where I had put during one of my troubleshooting attempts.

All's good now,.... I guess. ;)
 
J

JohnBernstein

Banned
Mar 31, 2006
84
0
0
Originally posted by: Glendor
I think I was inadvertently placing GRUB on the wrong partition.
Glendor...
Click to expand...
Just to help out -- It doesn't matter which partition you install Grub on as long as the partition can be seen at boot.

 
J

JohnBernstein

Banned
Mar 31, 2006
84
0
0
Originally posted by: JohnBernstein
The computer boots only into WinXP, and does not give any option for booting to Fedora at all.

The answer to your problem is here:

http://linux.coconia.net/addingXP.htm

The fix is easy.
Click to expand...
So easy that the guts of it can be written here in 3 lines:

grub> root (hd0,4) ------------ (hd0,4)=/dev/hda5 etc)
grub> setup (hd0) ------------ (installs GRUB to the MBR of 1st harddrive, (hd0)=/dev/hda )
grub> quit ------------ (exits the GRUB shell)
 
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