Re: F7-x86-64 Stopped Booting - GRUB Issue - Fixed!

Raymond C. Rodgers wrote:
Jacques B. wrote:
Check out
http://www.pmg.lcs.mit.edu/~chandra/install/install_dualboot.html

Go down to section 7 (although this may only apply to Lilo so not
sure) and see if that sounds familiar.

Also I found the following at
http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html

"# When I select Linux from the boot menu, I get a frozen "GRUB" (or
an "L" in the case of LILO)
# Make sure you created the linux.bin file correctly with the dd
command. If you think you ran the command correctly, the problem may
be that your /boot partition is beyond cylinder 1024 and your BIOS
can't reach it. At system startup, the Windows boot loader lists the
choices from boot.ini. When you select Linux, the boot loader then
loads the 512-byte linux.bin file, and then BIOS tries to access the
/boot partition to run GRUB. Some BIOS implementations can only
address the first 1024 cylinders of a hard drive, which corresponds to
~8.5 GB. How do you fix this? Create your /boot partition before
cylinder 1024; i.e. before ~8.5 GB."

Does this scenario sound familiar? Did you have to create a linux.bin
file or a BOOTSECT.LNX file on your Windows box? If it, it sounds
like a kernel update may require that you rebuild either applicable
file in order for it to work again.

Having said that you are getting the grub prompt so it would appear
that the Windows boot loader is pointing to the right place for your
grub boot loader. Which brings us back to a likely grub.conf
configuration problem. But before suggesting how to trouble shoot
that I'd like to make sure that what I suspect is happening (as per
previous posting) is indeed happening.

The solution was as I had originally guessed: I needed to make a new copy of the boot sector, and place it [in a file] on my Windows XP boot partition for NTLDR via boot.ini to load and use. Once I did that, Fedora booted just fine. I immediately did another yum update, and saw yet another new kernel come down the pipe, so I made a new copy of the boot sector right away, just in case.

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions and tips. And for the record, Karl, yes, my grub.conf was pretty much configured exactly as you stated, which is apparently the correct configuration. But it was indeed that I needed to update the boot sector file that NTLDR used.

Raymond

Thanks and it is true that I knew nothing about the windows boot system. It sounds quite crude :-)

If you ever want to do it RIGHT, do not worry about loosing windows and set up grub as your only boot system. Then when you get a update to F7 your system will still work fine. As it is now, every kernel update will be a pain.



--

Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
Linux User
#450462 http://counter.li.org.

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