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From: Anne Onime on 16 Jul 2010 03:04
I originally had a disk dual-booting 2 different versions
of Windoze. Then I added a second disk and installed Linux
on it. Now after defining where to install Linux, you get a
choice which disk to boot from. I said first disk, although
it warned me when I did this. It seemed to work with Fedora
6 and 10, but when I upgraded to Fedora 11, it broke:
no longer summons the "other" OS. I get gibberish on the
screen instead of NTLDR/BOOT.INI
Should I say boot from second disk, where Linux lives?
How is this done? Does it change something in BIOS, so
boots from disk2 instead of disk1?

From: sid on 16 Jul 2010 06:11
Anne Onime wrote:
> I originally had a disk dual-booting 2 different versions
> of Windoze. Then I added a second disk and installed Linux
> on it. Now after defining where to install Linux, you get a
> choice which disk to boot from. I said first disk, although
> it warned me when I did this. It seemed to work with Fedora
> 6 and 10, but when I upgraded to Fedora 11, it broke:
> no longer summons the "other" OS. I get gibberish on the
> screen instead of NTLDR/BOOT.INI
> Should I say boot from second disk, where Linux lives?
> How is this done? Does it change something in BIOS, so
> boots from disk2 instead of disk1?
>


You can easily dual boot with separate hard disks by holding one of the
function keys during post and selecting boot device. which key varies
depending on BIOS (and sometimes you have to enable the option in BIOS
set up), usually it is F12 or F8 but not always.

However since your grub (maybe fedora is using grub2, which has had a
few problems) is now not working right you may need to fix it. It's
quite easy to fix grub, I think grub2 goes about things differently so I
can't help with it. Try the F key first and determine which OS's will
boot and which won't. You may also have to fix the MBR on the windows
disk, if fedora has changed it but that really isn't difficult either.

To fix the MBR, I would disconnect the disk you have linux on, just to
be safe, and then put in the windows CD/DVD, boot to recovery console
and run "fixmbr" there are also "fixboot" and "edit". fixboot does what
you think it does, fixes the boot loader, edit just lets you edit the
boot loader yourself.

From: Hans-Peter Diettrich on 16 Jul 2010 07:56
Anne Onime schrieb:
> I originally had a disk dual-booting 2 different versions
> of Windoze. Then I added a second disk and installed Linux
> on it. Now after defining where to install Linux, you get a
> choice which disk to boot from. I said first disk, although
> it warned me when I did this. It seemed to work with Fedora
> 6 and 10, but when I upgraded to Fedora 11, it broke:
> no longer summons the "other" OS. I get gibberish on the
> screen instead of NTLDR/BOOT.INI

I also found an broken bootmanager installation with openSuse 11, that
resulted in an unbootable machine - the same can happen with every
(early) new Linux version. If nothing helps, install an older version
that worked for you. If you have left space on the second disk, install
it as just another system, what should allow to install the older
(working) bootmanager for all your installed systems.

> Should I say boot from second disk, where Linux lives?

Most probably, yes. Linux should install grub or another bootmanager,
that then allows to also select the Windows installation(s).

Booting Linux from the Windows bootmenu should be much more complicated,
because you'll have to update that menu manually, whenever you install
another Linux. A Linux bootmanager configuration tool instead should be
able to find all installed systems, including Windows, and update the
bootmanager accordingly.

> How is this done? Does it change something in BIOS, so
> boots from disk2 instead of disk1?

grub can be installed in various places, including MBR or a dedicated
bootmanager partition. Please read the instructions when you reach the
bootmanager installation in your Linuy setup. If in doubt, use the
offered defaults. I never understood these instructions and the
implications myself :-(

DoDi
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