Well, now that you got this far, let's set up the drives the way that they should be, at least from my perspective.
 
Jumper your Win ME drive back to primary master.
 
Jumper the Fedora drive primary slave.
 
Make sure the cables are connected properly, the Win drive on the ide cable to master, the other to slave.
 
Then see if Win ME boots on it's own. If you altered the MBR on that drive, it probably won't. If it does, we will go from there.
 
If it tries to boot into the grub shell, reboot with the Fedora install disk and rescue mode. Change grub to the following for the Windows install;
 
title Windoz
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
 
Make a note of where the Fedora root is, say; (hd0,0) or whatever. Post here on the forum what it says root is (and what it says if there is a rootverify tag). Save your changes and reboot. See if Grub will boot into Windows at the grub menu. if it does, we will go from there to recover Fedora.
 
Windows likes to be the first install on the master. Also, there is no need to swap drives for a Fedora install, this just confuses the process.
 
 
 

danleff,
 
I'm going off memory here...
 
If I unplug the FC2 drive from the system, the ME drive will boot without any problems. When I had to reload FC2 with the ME drive installed in the system, it recognized the ME drive as hdb.
 
For Linux it says "root (hd0,0)". It also has a kernel line and then one more after it, but I wouldn't even begin to try and remember what they said.
 
More after I get to check out the system at home... Probably 12 to 24 hours before my follow-up to this message.
 
THANKS!
Babbs

Ok, I think i got it now, thanks!
 
Look at the system. It looks like your Windows drive still has the MBR intact for Windows.
 
The linux drive has Grub on the MBR of that drive.
 
I would leave both drives in the system, the Windows drive as primary master, the other as primary slave or secondary master or slave, depending where the cdrom drive(s) are set at.
 
If the system boots to Windows w/o the Linux drive attached, I would reinstall Fedora and tell it to do a fresh install, allowing Grub to install on the MBR of the primary master, hopefully which is hda.
 
When you get to the partitioning section of the install, tell Fedora to format the second drive completely for the install.
 
The best solution would be to re-partition the second drive ahead of time, to assure a fresh install and to wipe the MBR on the second drive. This assures a fresh start. But, if you don't have a partitioning tool to do this, we can suggest some.
 
But let's see what you got on the re-install.
 
Then, see if you get a correct boot to Windows and Fedora.
 
Again, make sure that you do not swap out drives at all.
 
 

Hi everyone,
 
I'm sorry for being AFK for so long.
 
Yes, the WinME drive still works when it is the only drive installed. After trying to fiddle with the grub prompt for a while, I decided to reinstall FC2 last night.
 
The IDE1 cable goes from the motherboard to my WinME drive and then to the FC2 drive on the other end. The IDE2 cable goes from the motherboard to the CD/DVD drive on the end with the middle plug unused. The FC2 drive is jumpered to be master, and the WinME drive is jumpered to be slave. The bios is set to recognize both drives as LBA (not auto).
 
In the above configuration, I reinstalled FC2. I told the setup to wipe, partition and install on hda (leaving hdb, aka WinME, alone). The default grub.conf file from the anaconda installer is:
 
-----anaconda's grub.conf file (unaltered from install)-----
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
password --md5 ############yea right############
title Fedora FC2 (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 WindozME
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1
-----end anaconda's grub.conf file-----
 
With grub set like this, I can boot to FC2 with no problems.
 
When I select WindozME, the system just hangs while it trys to launch WinME.
 
The reason that I have the IDE1 cable plugged into the drives as stated above is because the bios doesn't want to recognize both drives when they are plugged in the opposite way (even with the jumpers set correctly). Maybe this problem is a faulty cable, maybe not. I will install a new (fresh from the pack) cable tonight and monkey around with the drive locations to see if I can't have better luck.
 
Tonight's game plan is:
1) Modify the grub.conf file to change the "root (hd0,0)" line to "root (hd1,0)"
2) Modify the grub.conf file to change the "rootnoverify (hd1,0)" line to "rootnoverify (hd0,0)"
3) Disconnect the FC2 drive to retest the ability for the WinME drive to still boot on its own.
4) Swap the hda and hdb on the cable and make sure the jumpers are set properly.
5) Test
6) Any problems? -> Reinstall FC2.
7) Report results here...
 
Thanks!
Babbs
 
 

Hello again,
 
- I modified the grub.conf file as planned.
- I confirmed that WinME could still boot on its own.
- I swapped the two hard drives.
- I found out that WinME has a 'Blue Screen of Death' too. I didn't know that before.
 
That is when my 'fun' began...
 
My two hard drives are 20GB each. The WinME drive is a Quantum Fireball and the FC2 drive is a Maxtor. Although it shouldn't matter, I think there may be a conflict between these two drives and the motherboard bios. Maybe the conflict is with WinME. I don't know, I don't really care.
 
After much fussing and fiddling, I finally got the bios to recognize both drives AND still boot to WinME. The final cabling was with IDE1 going from the motherboard to the CD/DVD drive, then to the Fireball. The IDE2 cable goes from the motherboard to the Maxtor with the middle connector left empty. Both hard drives were set to Master with the CD/DVD drive set to slave. Believe me, after trying off and on for two weeks, this was the first time that I got all three drives to be recognized by the bios at the same time while booting to WinME. Having started with a full head of hair, I've pulled out so much that I'm nearly bald now...
 
With all drives up and running and with WinME working, I stick FC2 Disk 1 into the drive and reboot.
 
FC2 did the full install successfully and required me to do a reboot... When I did that, the system booted straight to WinME. No grub.
 
WinME is on hda and FC2 is now on hdc. The install was told to delete hdc and start from scratch. It asked me where to put the boot information (hda or hdc1). Knowing that messing with the MBR on Windows is a bad thing, I told it hdc1.
 
I think that I'm close to getting this computer where I want it. I sure hope so...
 
Tonight, I will try to fiddle with the bios boot order settings to see if I can get grub to come up like it should.
 
This saga will be updated again tomorrow...
 
Babbs

Windows being the stick-in-the-mud that it is, you must make the WinME
drive the master (making it "C:" in Windows and hda in Linux).
 
Before someone posts a rebuttal: it's a must unless you're willing to start
over with installing WinME from scratch on the slave ("D:" aka hdb).
 
Danleff has been trying to point you in the right direction - if you want to have
WinME on the master and Linux on the slave and dual boot, then you'll
have to ensure that grub installs itself in the MBR of hda (aka "C:").
 
I realize as I write this the multiple naming is probably confusing.
Sorry.. hda [Linux] == hd0 [grub] == "C:" [WinME] <-- does that help?
 

danleff and martouf,
 
I thank you both for your most helpful replys and guidance.
 
I have been fighting several issues with this effort. It would seem that I've been fighting both the hardware and the software. The hardware conflicts seem to be resolved with WinME being hda ( C: ) as the master on IDE1 and with FC2 being hdc as the master on IDE2. It would seem that FC2 has reserved hdb for a hard drive set as slave on IDE1 and possibly has hdd reserved for a hard drive set as slave on IDE2. I don't know why WinME won't work when the FC2 drive is set as the slave on IDE1, but it doesn't.
 
I just changed the bios boot sequence from CD-ROM, HDD-0, HDD-1 to CD-ROM, HDD-1, HDD-0. When I did that, grub came up, but I couldn't select either OS. I suspect that my doing this caused grub to see the FC2 drive as hda instead of hdc as it expected. I switched the bios settings back and rebooted.
 
Martouf, you said that I need to have grub install itself into the MBR on the WinME drive in order to get the dual boot. I have a lot of data on that drive and I do not presently have a way to back it up in an efficent way. Also, I am not sure where the original WinME CD is. If I lost the MBR, I'd be sunk.
 
The idea of using a boot floppy for grub is an option that I'd rather not do, but it would seem like that is the direction I'm headed... That means digging up an old 1.44 from the junk pile and hoping that I can find one that hasn't had a slice of cheese crammed in. (Until one of my daughters did that the first time, I didn't realize how close in size a slice of cheese and a 1.44 floppy are.)
 
Since I've always considered messing with a Windows MBR to be VERY dangerous, I've got to ask... Am I likely to have problems by putting grub in the Windows MBR on the C: drive? Am I better off putting grub on a floppy?
 
Or... Should put the WinME drive back in its old case and keep the two operating systems seperate? If I do that, then I'll need to find a switchbox that will play nice with FC2...
 
Again, thank you VERY much for your help!
 
Babbs

saving a copy of an MBR is really easy..
 
(as root)
dd if=/dev/hda of=extraspecialoriginalMBR.bin bs=512 count=1
[if == input file, of == output file, bs == block size]
 
(check contents with)
od -tx1 -Ax extraspecialoriginalMBR.bin
[you'll observe: first byte == 'eb', last two bytes == '55', 'aa']
 
(check identity with)
strings extraspecialoriginalMBR.bin
 
 
got a thumb drive and a LiveCD for disaster recovery handy?
 
 
as for drive name/identity - it all has to do with the order the disks
are found as the initialization probes sequentially through each interface.
They are assigned names in the order they are discovered by the probes.
The probe order isn't affected by the boot order, though.
 
 
cheers!
 

danleff and martouf,
 
Thank you for all your help! In addition to my posting here, I also sent a message to my local LUG mailing list.
 
I received very helpful advice from both this forum and the LUG list.
 
Since I was too afraid to load grub to my WinME MBR, another recommendation was an OS loader.
 
I ended up going with OSL2000 ( www.osloader.com). Although there are others out there, I tried this one and I was not disappointed.
 
Thank you again!
Babbs
 

UPDATE...
 
Since my last posting, I have upgraded from FC2 to FC3. During this upgrade, I decided to stop using OSL2000 and use GRUB.
 
I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers, and updated the MBR on HD0 (WinME drive). HD1 has FC3/ext3 partitions for boot, OS and swap.
 
Everything is working well...
 
Babbs

Good to hear! Sometimes you just have to go or it. Nice work!

Hi
am stuck with a similar situation.
I have a desktop with two SATA hdd's which are seen by FC3 as sda and sdb. sda has FC3 and sdb has winxp.
#fdisk /dev/sda
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 3200 25599577+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 3201 3331 1052257+ 82 Linux swap
the rest of the space i left for data (partitions yet to be created)
#fdisk /dev/sdb
Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
 
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 1275 10241406 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 1276 9728 67898722+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 1276 9728 67898691 7 HPFS/NTFS
 
my grub.conf looks like this.
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=15
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#hiddenmenu
title Fedora Core (2.6.9-1.667smp)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667smp ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.667smp.img
title Fedora Core-up (2.6.9-1.667)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img
title PainXPee
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1
 
The comp loads FC3 fine but when asked to load winxp it says the above last two lines and hangs. When I disable the first SATA 120G which has grub&FC3, winxp boots fine.
 
This happened to me on a FC3/Win98 comp. Win98 can boot independently but thru grub 'NO'.
 
anybody have any ideas why?
 
thanks
balu