Dual Boot with FC3 and Win 2K

[Jeff Vian]

On Tue, 2005-01-11 at 19:17 -0500, Cyber Source wrote:
> Also, the mapping is necessary for dual drives, windows needs to think 
> that it is on the primary drive.
> 

Maybe, and maybe not.

I am not using XP at present, but my windows 98 install is very happy
existing on /dev/hdb1 and booting from grub in the MBR on /dev/hda/.
When I tried XP it worked the same way.

I do not use the map lines in grub.conf, and when installing linux it
does not write those lines either.

I think the real issue is that windows will usually only boot from the
first partition it sees as a dos/ntfs partition.  I have no partitions
other than  linux/swap on hda so the first partition windows can see
is /dev/hdb1 and it is happy there. 

> John Thorburn wrote:
> 
> >I have a Dell system which has 2 HD's and a current
> >install of Win 2K. I wiped out the 2nd HD and
> >installed FC3 on it. I used the Auto Partition option
> >for this drive and installed GRUB to handle the boot
> >load stuff. However, the system doesn't give me the
> >option at boot to use FC3 or Win 2K; it just goes to
> >Win 2K.
> >
> >I tried placing GRUB on hda and then on hdb. Neither
> >worked. I tried to reinstall the Boot Loader and, when
> >I do, FC3 tries to install Firefox and then tells me
> >that no images were loaded and that none of my boot
> >loader changes will take effect.
> >
> >I've tried alot of stuff so far and I'm at my wit's
> >end. Any help would be appreciated as I'm new to
> >Linux/FC.
> >
> >Thanks much in advance.
> >John T.
> >

You can boot to rescue mode from the first install CD.
then do a "chroot /mnt/sysimage" to get the same environment you would
have if booted from the hard disk.

now you need to check the /boot/grub//grub.conf file and verify the
stanza to boot XP is in there.  If not it will need to be added

finally check /boot/grub/device.map and verify /dev/hda is mapped to
(hd0) and /dev/hdb is mapped to (hd1)

after verifying everything is correct in the grub.conf file you last run
"grub-install /dev/hda"

Now a reboot should by default boot to linux and a menu selection should
let you boot to XP

Alternatively you can follow someone else's suggestion that you switch
drive positions.  Either way will work.