FC2 & dual boot.. problem still there :(

[Cormac Long]

Folks,
   I can confirm that the official FC2 does indeed have the same problem
as previously reported with the test releases. 

I got the ISOs yesterday from a Swiss mirror and installed on my dual
boot Acer Aspire 1300 laptop.. I did a fresh install, preserving my
existing home partition and leaving my existing XP partition for a dual
boot.. same thing I've done for ages right back to the first RH usage of
Grub... I have the real thing and not one of the older test releases.

During the initial install stages, if I recall as the disk druid bit was
kicking in.. I was prompted regarding the LBA mode.. so I rebooted the
laptop to force enable it.. my bios has no such option.. all it lets me
do is set the time and boot order. So I rebooted and just ignored the
warning.

It installed fine.. worked a treat.. but then when I tried to boot XP,
it just hung on the grub console.. I tried the variations of suggested
configurations for /etc/grub.conf.. adding makeactive etc.. made no
difference, even after grub-install attempts.

I also used the XP cd to get a Windows recovery console prompt and ran
fixmbr and fixboot and also tried BOOTCFG /rebuild.. but still a reboot
just hung the XP boot... this was odd, because usually these commands
overwrite grub, making the system a windows only boot, requiring a linux
rescue from RH/FC CD to re-install grub in the MBR.

So it appears the issue is still there and will be the cause of much
flame.. fearing I might have had a test release, I confirmed with the
MD5SUMS again.. it is the official release that I got... the issue still
exists!

On the recovery front, I booted from Knoppix as it has native NTFS
enabled and was able to mount the existing windows NTFS partition.. its
still there and seems intact.. so I was able to copy off files and FTP
to another machine etc in prep for a new Windows install.. trouble is
that I think if I do a clean install of Windows and then a linux rescue
to restore grub, that the problem will still be there... I'll end up
unable to boot the XP partition.

So it was a downer!.. and I realise that windows is bad and evil.. but I
need to to have dual boots and I'm sure that many others out there are
also in this boat.

Below are outputs from the fdisk -l command and the existing grub.conf
file for anyone who is interested.


        title Fedora Core (2.6.5-1.358)
                root (hd0,0)
                kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
                initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img
        title Windows XP
                rootnoverify (hd0,1)
                makeactive
                chainloader +1



        [root at dhcp-145 cormac]# fdisk -l
        
        Disk /dev/hda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
        16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 58140 cylinders
        Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
        
           Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
        /dev/hda1               1         210      105808+  83  Linux
        /dev/hda2   *         211       31425    15732360    7
        HPFS/NTFS
        /dev/hda3           31426       39750     4195800   83  Linux
        /dev/hda4           39751       58140     9268560    f  W95
        Ext'd (LBA)
        /dev/hda5           39751       41835     1050808+  82  Linux
        swap
        /dev/hda6           41836       58140     8217688+  83  Linux
        


Regards,
   Cormac
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