Fedora Installation :: Dual DOS / XP Boot Damaged By - 14 Installation
Feb 27, 2011
I use DOS and WIndows XP for engineering and CAD work, and HAD a WORKING dual boot system, with NTLDR booting both systems. Now, after my attempts to add Fedora 14, I don't have ANY working OS. I don't know much of anything about Linux. I just wanted to add it to my to machine for safe and reliable web browsing and email. I know it can be used for much more, but that was just the initial goal.
I've watched a friend create a triple boot with Linux a couple years ago, and he wrote the procedure up for me. (I've seen the same procedure posted many places online.) It involves installing linux to a clean formatted XT3 OR XT4 partition and GRUB to the root of the same partition. Then you "DD" the first 512 bytes of the partition to a file "bootsect.lnx" in the primary partition. And finally, you reference "bootsect.lnx" in the Windows BOOT.INI.
I repartitioned the drive for Linux, using Partition Commander 11. It's structured like this. (sizes are my best recollection)
I booted from a Fedora 14 LIVE CD. Ran GPARTED from a terminal window. It identified the 100GB XT 4 partition as SDA7 and the 2GB Linux swap as SDA8. I figured this was the only place Fedora would go. So I started the installer.
It didn't tell me where it was going to install, but alerted me that I had FAT, FAT32 and NTFS partitions. I was given several choices and selected the option that would not touch those partitions. The installation proceeded, and I was never given the chance to tell the installer where to install GRUB. I had every reason to expect that it installed to the XT4 partition. On reboot, I now have a command line, "GRUB:" No DOS, WINDOWS or Linux.
Is there anyway to restore my DOS and WIndows booting under NT Loader? Or is it gone for good? I may want Linux, but I can't live without the DOS and WIndows for my work. If it IS possible to fix this can we do that BEFORE we get back to installing Linux?
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Jul 21, 2010
i just wanted to know that during a dual boot installation with windows xp, if fedora is installed after windows, where does the GRUB go on the hard disk? In the /boot partition or the MBR of the hard disk?
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May 17, 2009
I currently have XP installed on a NetBook (Samsung NC10), and would like to run Fedora on it. I'm currently looking at putting Fedora onto a flash memory card to test it works OK on the hardware, before installing it to the hard disk. The problem I've got is that the boot sector is occupied by WDE software (TrueCrypt). Will this pose a problem for dual-booting XP with Fedora, or will GRUB move the boot loader in the usual way?
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Jan 10, 2010
I just set up a dual boot on a system with fedora 12 and XP. XP in on one hard drive (sda) and Fedora on a second hard drive (sdb).
I installed grub on the Fedora disk so as to not touch the windows disk at all.
Prior to installation, in the bios, I set the Fedora disk (sdb) first in the boot sequence, and then XP (sda) so that the grub loader would boot up by default. (If I set the windows drive first then the system bypasses grub and loads straight into windows.)
My system can now boot up into Fedora fine, but if I select windows from the grub loader menu I just get a blinking cursor - windows will not boot.What do I have to do so that grub can boot into XP?
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Aug 10, 2011
I've been running a dual-boot ubuntu 11.04 64-bit and windows 7 64-bit for a while now, and recently got a new computer. I moved the hard drives to the new computer (one had both os's on it, the other was just a storage drive) and windows 7 would not boot, so I reinstalled it. I used a live cd to repair grub using boot repair /Boot-Repair) and everything looked to be going swell But when I tried to boot I got "invalid or damaged bootable partition" instead of a grub menu. so I went back and, copying and pasting the commands the program gave me, I manually removed and reinstalled grub on my ubuntu partition. same error. so, I backed up all my documents onto a third drive, wiped everything out, and started again. I installed win7 on one drive, and then when that was done, I installed ubuntu on the other. lo and behold when I tried to boot I got the same error message, and now I can't even boot from my windows drive. The ubuntu drive is fairly new and according to disk utility has no errors. Is this some problem with grub or what?
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Feb 6, 2009
I've been wrestling with this for the last couple of days - I can't dual boot XP and F10.
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I did notice when installing F10 that it remapped my drives, making the WIndows and therefore boot drive /dev/sdb and the Linux Drive /dev/sda. I know this requires changing some of the drive designations (hd0,0 etc) but I've done it twice and ended up only being able to boot into Windows.
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Mar 23, 2010
I had a dual boot machine with fedora 12 and windows vista and I could use grub boot-loader to switch between two. Few days ago windows got corrupt and I have to reinstall it. I put windows 7 now and as usual it erased grub. So to reinstall I put the fedora 12 installation CD on and followed some usual setup steps. When I got the command line I issued the command "grub-install /dev/sda" (sda not hda because It showed bunch of sda, sda1..) but surprisingly it said grub command not found. I remember doing it before while it worked fine.
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Feb 11, 2009
I need to remove my dual boot of WinXP & F9 to replace them with F10. Should I format the disk before installing F10? I'm still a beginner in Fedora. & How is the fedora 10? do you recommend replacing it compared to F9?
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Feb 14, 2009
I have two hard drives in my PC, ubuntu 8.10 on the first. After reading good reviews about Fedora 10, i decided to give it a try. I installed Fedora 10 in my second hard drive and the distro is great. But my problem is that now I cannot get into the Ubuntu install. I changed the /boot/grub/menu.lst file as recommended by several posts, but no progress. my menu.lst file below. if I have got it wrong or if I need to add anything.
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Apr 26, 2009
I'm looking to dive right into this whole GNU/Linux thing, and am looking to try out as many distros as I can. I've already installed Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope, and want to dual boot fedora 10 with it. How hard would this be for a total linux n00b like myself?
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May 6, 2009
I have a PC with two 40 Gb hard drives. Vista is currently installed on drive 0. Nothing is installed on drive 1. If I switch cables to the drives, Vista will be installed on drive 1. Nothing will be installed on drive 0. If I then install Fedora 10 on drive 0, will it automatically detect Vista on drive 1 and allow me the option of using Grub or something else to boot it? I want to avoid having Vista overwrite my MBR, but I don't want to piss my wife off because she can't access windows for two weeks while I figure out how to customize Grub or install something else. If I need to customize Grub, (or some other boot loader), I would need step by step instructions. Is there a book or online tutorial?
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May 20, 2009
how to install fedora on a hdd that already has xp sp2 and setup a dual boot.
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May 25, 2009
I already have windows XP SP2. i want to install fedora 10. how can i install it as a dual boot option. I current have
C: drive 40GB -- windows XP NTFS
D: drive 20GB NTFS
E: drive 20GB NTFS
tell me the steps to install fedora 10 as dual boot option.
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Jun 16, 2009
I've successfully used Fedora 11 from a USB stick as a live cd iso. Everything seems to work on my netbook so i want to try installing it but I need it to be a dual boot with windows. How can i do this? And will it definitely work or are there issues (I've read that F11 has problems installing if not taking over the entire HD)?
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Aug 10, 2009
I need to create a dual boot system consisting of 32 bit Fedora 9 and 64 bit Fedora 9, but I'm unable to go about it. How exactly should I do it?
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Aug 25, 2009
I have managed to reduce the default LVM F8 install to make room for F10... See Bare metal backup:
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And shrink the partition:
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I now have about 50G free on a 80G drive. The F8 system has a small /boot and an LVM partition that includes swap. What I want to do is install F10 WITHOUT LVM on the free space. Access to the F8 LVM drive would be a plus but not complete necessary. I just want to keep the F8 system as is until I get set up with everything under f10, which may be a bit. I am not sure what to enter for mount points for the custom drive layout. I need a small swap partition (I don't want to use F8 swap because it will be going away in the future, for example when I install F12 and have dual boot F10/F12 system. What should I have as primary partitions and which as secondary?
How do I set up the boot? Grub?
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Sep 13, 2009
Only Fedora 11 is on the boot menu after replacing Fedora 10 by new install on a 10+WinMe dual boot computer. The WinME partition is available after booting Fedora 11. How do I add WinME as a boot choice?
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Nov 18, 2009
I would like to try out fedora 12 using dual boot method. i currently have ubuntu karmic installed with grub2 and ext4 partitions and would like to dual boot with fedora 12. if i just install fedora 12 will it automatically pick up ubuntu karmic as welland add it to grub. will there be any problems since fedora uses grub legacy and ubuntu uses grub2?
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Nov 19, 2009
I want to setup a machine that can dual boot both Fedora and Ubuntu.
The machine already has F11 installed and the bootloader is in /dev/md0 partition.
There are mounts:
I added another drive pair because I want Ubuntu on its own LVM partition on separate drive array.
So how do I add Ubuntu to this now?
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Nov 25, 2009
fresh installed F12 on secondary drive, XP on primary drive. Then swapped drives making F12 primary. I boot into F12 fine, I also get menu to boot Other but when I choose this option instead of going into XP I get error 22 no partition? I can swap the drives around & boot into windows fine. I know I must not be pointing or having F12 pointing to the correct partition for XP.
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Dec 27, 2009
I am a relative newbie to Fedora 12, altho did start with OpenSuse. I installed XP first with the games that couldn't run via wine. Then I installed Fedora but I must've done something wrong as although Fedora runs fine with a few personal tweaks with everything I want I can't access XP as it is no longer an option in the boot up. What do you suggest I do. I have a system rescue cd ready but don't know how to access the boot or change it.
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Jan 6, 2010
Can I install Fedora 12 on a clean sata drive and have it run alongside my current Windows XP Pro? How do I do it?
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Feb 19, 2010
how to use dual boot option?? i wanna use xp and federo.
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Feb 19, 2010
I just installed Fedora and I love it but I can no longer boot Windows 7. I have two hard drives, sda and sdb.sda1 is my windows partition. sda2 is my /boot for Fedora. sdb1 is an ntfs partition for storage. sdb2 is swap. sdb3 is my 40 gig /root partition. Why can't I boot windows?
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May 20, 2010
I have pc containing 80 GB Hard Disc with 1 GB RAM. I am using 60 GB for windows and 20 Gb for Fedora 12. Recently i formatted the pc and reinstalled both. I installed windows 7 instead of Windows XP i am using earlier. Now i do not like windows 7. My system became very slow. perhaps as my pc is five years old and motherbord configuration may not be matching. Now i want to revert to windows XP. I do not know any method by which i can retain fedora 12 and change from windows 7 to XP. Earlier i formatted complete hard disc and installed fedora 12 (myself) after windows 7 (by professional). but now i do not want to reinstall fedora 12. It will lose all upgradation and installed packages.
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May 20, 2010
I just bought a new laptop with the Intel I3 processer in it and it came with Windows 7 preloaded. I am running Ubuntu 9.10 32 bit on my old system but decided to use this opportunity to upgrade to a 64 bit OS and Fedora seemed to be a good choice. Anyways, the problem I'm having is that I am trying to run dual-boot with 7 and Fedora. I got it installed and from the grub menu, I can load both OS?s. I can boot 7 just fine but for some reason Fedora will not finish loading. It will start loading, run though several scripts and then the screen goes black like its trying to go to a splash screen but that were it stops. I tried the rescue option on the boot DVD and it pretty much did the same thing.
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Jun 27, 2010
A while ago I used a friends computer with F11 installed on it. I definitely want to install F13 on my computer now. Please, can someone either tell me complete information from the beggining to the end, or simply direct me to a guide somewhere else on the internet. I have a F13 live cd and want Windows 7 to be in control of the boot (by I suppose LiveBCD).
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Jul 23, 2010
I'm using ubuntu 10.04 at the moment and I'm interested in fedora 13.
Here is my grub.cfg file
I'm going to delete my sda1 entry (mandriva) and put fedora there instead. Will Fedora automatically detect my other partitions? If not, will copying and pasting the other entries into fedora's grub.cfg ?
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Aug 27, 2010
I installed Ubuntu, and then Fedora so I could choose between the two, but after installing Fedora I thought I would get a choice, but it just boots to Fedora. Here's a screenie of my gpart and a paste of my grub. Can you tell where I screwed up, and how to fix it?
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Sep 6, 2010
I have a netbook with windows 7 installed and want to put Fedora 13 on also. Im not new to computers per se but new to linux. I did install Ubuntu 10.04 but didnt like it that much. I have tried Fedora 13 on my usb pen before installing and found it much nicer to use than Ubuntu.I do have an external dvdrw to install this if its easier.My query is..How do i dual boot this? I tried but every option i see isnt the option i want. I dont want to chose "use free space" as this will take all the rst of the 250gb hard drive i have and leave me nothing for windows. IF i partitioned the hard drive in half, how would i do
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