Re: Serious reservations about FC2 release on 5/18

[Gerry Tool <gstool earthlink net>]

Florian Bachmann wrote:
> Confushion schrieb:
>
> > Folks,
> >
> > Fedora Core 2 supposedly is about to be released. 
> > A very serious bug exists which can render dual-boot Windows XP
> > installations inoperable.  The problem has been discussed in other
> > threads here on this list, and can be found in bugzilla, so I won't go
> > over it in more detail.  Please see bugzilla bugs 120128 and 115980. 
> > This problem happens on my hardware even if the harddrive is wiped, and
> > a fresh Windows XP install is performed before FC2-test3.  I know 
> > about this problem because I experienced it first hand in
> > FC2-test3.  The only way I've found to work around it is to install
> > Windows XP, then FC1, and finally do an UPGRADE to FC2-test3.  Something
> > is just plain not right with the FC2 "from scratch" installation
> > process.  This problem did NOT exist in FC1!
> >
> >  
> A quick fix would be to install GRUB into the boot block of the hard 
> disk partition that
> holds the /boot directory instead of the MBR.  You can then dump the 
> GRUB boot sector
> to a file and use the Windows XP boot loader to boot into linux.
>
> Regards
Not necessarily true.  I ran into this problem installing FC2Testx onto 
an already existing Linux partition, installing GRUB onto the boot 
record for that partition, leaving the MBR alone under control of 
another linux partition.  After the install, I added the new boot 
information to the controlling grub.conf and could boot to everything 
except windows XP which was still an entry in the previously existing 
grub.conf.  I could not find a way to resurrect windows XP, so ended up 
reinstalling it.

Anthony DeStefano may have pointed out a fix - first one I've heard - to 
change the BIOS to forced LBA rather than Auto.  I hope someone else who 
has this happen to them can confirm that.

I always install a stand-alone copy of a new release like FC2 and try it 
for a while before updating my previous production system, as FC1 
currently is on my system.  Anyone doing this that also has XP booting 
from Grub is VERY likely to encounter this problem.

Treating this as a Windows XP problem is burying your head in the sand. 
 As pointed out, it does not happen with FC1 or any former Red Hat release.

I did have it occur when installing a copy of Mandrake 10 Community 
also.  Perhaps the 2.6 kernel is involved, as that is a common element 
in MDK10 and FC2.

To solve my problem I finally installed XP to a second harddrive on a 
separate secondary controller and just boot to it using the BIOS boot menu.

I do concur that this is going to hurt the reputation of FC2.

Gerry Tool