Installed with disastrous results

[Ben Stringer]

On Wed, 2003-12-03 at 21:09, PCDEBB | Fedora-list wrote:
> I decided to upgrade my Redhat 9 to Fedora Core lastnite (12/2/03 9:30pm).
> Install seemed well until I rebooted.  I simply got the word "GRUB" with a
> blinking cursor.  No selections, couldn't type anything at all.  Thankfully
> I created a boot disk, so I was able to boot into Fedora.  Installing grub
> was a disaster.  It is now 5am, and I just now reached my windows desktop
> after searching all over for a bootable windows cd to fix my mbr.  The
> install seemed so simple that even I could do it, but no such thing.  Thru
> the night it went from bad to worse to where the internet wouldn't even work
> anymore.  I went to many forums and asked around for help but got no help.
> I went back and did a fresh install of linux, told it not to install any
> bootloader, but I still got the grub screen.   I went to various how-to's to
> try an configure grub, no luck.  I tried everything I can think of until it
> literally brought me down to tears.  I love being a tech chick and I really
> want to get into this linux thing, but this experience has been very
> discouraging.

I had a similar experience when I first tried Linux years ago - sorry to
hear it is still this difficult.

To recover your windows functionality, you can restore the MBR using
"FDISK.EXE /MBR" (older Windows versions) or "FIXMBR"  - see
http://www.ntfs.com/mbr-damaged.htm

However Grub is a well behaved boot loader - it will look after Linux
and Windows booting if installed in the MBR. 

> 
> At this point I'm considering removing all traces of linux off this system
> for good, but I don't want to go out like that.  I really want to know how
> to fix the problem and learn from it.  At this point I can still boot from
> the floppy I think, but I'm scared to even reboot my system now, and I'd
> rather have a menu  choice to boot from instead of a floppy.  (floppies tend
> to find their way "reformatted" around here)

If they don't have a label, they're fair game :)

> 
> Can someone please steer a nice lady like myself in the right direction and
> start over and fix my boot now?  Can I even edit my boot.ini in windows?

I'd boot from a windows rescue CD, restore your MBR as mentioned above,
get confident that everything works as expected, then boot from floppy
into Fedora and install Grub onto the MBR.

Here is an example grub.conf that will allow booting Linux on the first
partition hd(0,0) and windows on the second hd(0,1)

default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2115.nptl)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi
        initrd /initrd-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl.img
title WinXP
        rootnoverify (hd0,1)
        chainloader +1


Cheers, Ben

-- 
.O.    Ben Stringer
..O    ben at burbong.com
OOO    linux|java|majitek|gnu