Need help installing Fedora Core 3

[Andrew Falanga]

Hello,

As strange as it may sound, yes I need help with this simple task. I've
got a problem that I've never seen before. The install works just
perfectly, but when the system reboots all I get is "GRUB " in the upper
left corner of my monitor with a flashing cursor one space to the text's
right. This occurs whether I use the automated partitioning system or
if I try and do it myself.

For the current system setup, it's a brand new MoBo with an AMD-64
processor. I have Windows XP currently installed and must dualboot the
system. Windows XP consumes 55gb of our 80gb HDD, the remainder I want
for linux (or some other free UNIX-like system). Any ideas as to what
is going wrong? I know that a few years ago there was a deficiency in
some systems for having boot files outside of a 6gb boundary. However,
I thought that only applied to Windows and that it had been fixed. What
am I missing? This is getting quite irritating.

Thanks for any help,
Andy

PS if you wish to contact me directly, just e-mail umagnum338 at
netscape dot net.


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[Stefan Viljoen]

Post by Andrew Falanga
Hello,
As strange as it may sound, yes I need help with this simple task. I've
got a problem that I've never seen before. The install works just
perfectly, but when the system reboots all I get is "GRUB " in the upper
left corner of my monitor with a flashing cursor one space to the text's
right. This occurs whether I use the automated partitioning system or
if I try and do it myself.

Did you install grub with forced LBA? I have this option in my RedHat 9
install, and I need to use it in order to get my P4 system to dual-boot Rh9
and XP. I think this has to do with your Linux partition being 55GB
"behind" the start of the disk. Certain BIOS'es apparently have problems
booting so far "down" the disk, unless you specify that LBA must be used to
boot. Again, as far as I know, only newer BIOS'es support LBA - but yours
should be able too, since you seem to have a very new system?

Anyway, look around and see if you can find something in the install for FC3
that allows for forcing GRUB to use LBA. Might help?

[Andrew Falanga]

Post by Stefan Viljoen

Post by Andrew Falanga
Hello,
As strange as it may sound, yes I need help with this simple task. I've
got a problem that I've never seen before. The install works just
perfectly, but when the system reboots all I get is "GRUB " in the upper
left corner of my monitor with a flashing cursor one space to the text's
right. This occurs whether I use the automated partitioning system or
if I try and do it myself.

Did you install grub with forced LBA? I have this option in my RedHat 9
install, and I need to use it in order to get my P4 system to dual-boot Rh9
and XP. I think this has to do with your Linux partition being 55GB
"behind" the start of the disk. Certain BIOS'es apparently have problems
booting so far "down" the disk, unless you specify that LBA must be used to
boot. Again, as far as I know, only newer BIOS'es support LBA - but yours
should be able too, since you seem to have a very new system?
Anyway, look around and see if you can find something in the install for FC3
that allows for forcing GRUB to use LBA. Might help?

This is, perhaps stupid, but should the BIOS be set to LBA as well? I
did find a check box to force GRUB to use LBA. My BIOS indicates that
the "AUTO" setting is supposed to set to LBA if the drive supports it
and if the drive was originally formatted with LBA. The second part
might be the problem child though, as the drive I'm using was formatted
once prior and I know not under what mode it was formatted. (I got the
drive free, it was an 80gb my father didn't need.)

So, in short, must the BIOS be set to LBA as well?

Andy


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[AnonymousFC3]

Short but assertive answer is YES, set your BIOS to LBA (should be the
default option!), then reinstall everything.
---
For anyone who has a fairly new system and disk drive (less than say 4
years), the BIOS should be set to LBA, which resolves many problems due to
the stupidity of the original implementation of the IDE/ATA specification,
which was relly a disaster: the CHS to physical as hard to program on the
disk side was quite difficult to program (dues to an irrational algorithm),
and resulted in buggy disks. To make the matter better, it made the
programing work harder on the OS side!
LBA (inherited from the SCSI interface), resolved pretty much all theses
issues.
AFC3
------

Post by Andrew Falanga
So, in short, must the BIOS be set to LBA as well?
Andy

[Andrew Falanga]

Post by Stefan Viljoen

Post by Andrew Falanga
Hello,
As strange as it may sound, yes I need help with this simple task. I've
got a problem that I've never seen before. The install works just
perfectly, but when the system reboots all I get is "GRUB " in the upper
left corner of my monitor with a flashing cursor one space to the text's
right. This occurs whether I use the automated partitioning system or
if I try and do it myself.

Did you install grub with forced LBA? I have this option in my RedHat 9
install, and I need to use it in order to get my P4 system to dual-boot Rh9
and XP. I think this has to do with your Linux partition being 55GB
"behind" the start of the disk. Certain BIOS'es apparently have problems
booting so far "down" the disk, unless you specify that LBA must be used to
boot. Again, as far as I know, only newer BIOS'es support LBA - but yours
should be able too, since you seem to have a very new system?
Anyway, look around and see if you can find something in the install for FC3
that allows for forcing GRUB to use LBA. Might help?

This is, perhaps stupid, but should the BIOS be set to LBA as well? I
did find a check box to force GRUB to use LBA. My BIOS indicates that
the "AUTO" setting is supposed to set to LBA if the drive supports it
and if the drive was originally formatted with LBA. The second part
might be the problem child though, as the drive I'm using was formatted
once prior and I know not under what mode it was formatted. (I got the
drive free, it was an 80gb my father didn't need.)

So, in short, must the BIOS be set to LBA as well?

Andy


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[Bit Twister]

Post by Andrew Falanga
This is, perhaps stupid, but should the BIOS be set to LBA as well? I
did find a check box to force GRUB to use LBA. My BIOS indicates that
the "AUTO" setting is supposed to set to LBA if the drive supports it
and if the drive was originally formatted with LBA. The second part
might be the problem child though, as the drive I'm using was formatted
once prior and I know not under what mode it was formatted. (I got the
drive free, it was an 80gb my father didn't need.)

In the past I found I had to set set bios LBA and reformat back in my
dos days to get a disk set correctly. I have sense always set a drive
LBA before using.

[AnonymousFC3]

Andrew:
make sure that your BIOS setting uses LBS for the disk.
=

Post by Andrew Falanga
Hello,
As strange as it may sound, yes I need help with this simple task. I've
got a problem that I've never seen before. The install works just
perfectly, but when the system reboots all I get is "GRUB " in the upper
left corner of my monitor with a flashing cursor one space to the text's
right. This occurs whether I use the automated partitioning system or
if I try and do it myself.
For the current system setup, it's a brand new MoBo with an AMD-64
processor. I have Windows XP currently installed and must dualboot the
system. Windows XP consumes 55gb of our 80gb HDD, the remainder I want
for linux (or some other free UNIX-like system). Any ideas as to what
is going wrong? I know that a few years ago there was a deficiency in
some systems for having boot files outside of a 6gb boundary. However,
I thought that only applied to Windows and that it had been fixed. What
am I missing? This is getting quite irritating.
Thanks for any help,
Andy
PS if you wish to contact me directly, just e-mail umagnum338 at
netscape dot net.
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[a***@agc.com]

Andrew:
make sure that your BIOS setting uses LBA for the disk.
=

Post by Andrew Falanga
Hello,
As strange as it may sound, yes I need help with this simple task. I've
got a problem that I've never seen before. The install works just
perfectly, but when the system reboots all I get is "GRUB " in the upper
left corner of my monitor with a flashing cursor one space to the text's
right. This occurs whether I use the automated partitioning system or
if I try and do it myself.
For the current system setup, it's a brand new MoBo with an AMD-64
processor. I have Windows XP currently installed and must dualboot the
system. Windows XP consumes 55gb of our 80gb HDD, the remainder I want
for linux (or some other free UNIX-like system). Any ideas as to what
is going wrong? I know that a few years ago there was a deficiency in
some systems for having boot files outside of a 6gb boundary. However,
I thought that only applied to Windows and that it had been fixed. What
am I missing? This is getting quite irritating.
Thanks for any help,
Andy
PS if you wish to contact me directly, just e-mail umagnum338 at
netscape dot net.
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[KJ]

Post by Andrew Falanga
Hello,
As strange as it may sound, yes I need help with this simple task. I've
got a problem that I've never seen before. The install works just
perfectly, but when the system reboots all I get is "GRUB " in the upper
left corner of my monitor with a flashing cursor one space to the text's
right. This occurs whether I use the automated partitioning system or
if I try and do it myself.
For the current system setup, it's a brand new MoBo with an AMD-64
processor. I have Windows XP currently installed and must dualboot the
system. Windows XP consumes 55gb of our 80gb HDD, the remainder I want
for linux (or some other free UNIX-like system). Any ideas as to what
is going wrong? I know that a few years ago there was a deficiency in
some systems for having boot files outside of a 6gb boundary. However,
I thought that only applied to Windows and that it had been fixed. What
am I missing? This is getting quite irritating.
Thanks for any help,
Andy
PS if you wish to contact me directly, just e-mail umagnum338 at
netscape dot net.
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I've never been able to get a Fedora distribution working on my computer,
and they all stall during the first boot process after install [flag don't
fix the problem either].

Point your browser to www.ubuntulinux.org and give Ubuntu linux a try.
Similar intended userbase, IMHO, but you'll be amazed at how easy the
installer is. And since its based on Debian, you get easy access to
Debian packages [and compatability] and apt-get.

[Randy Crawford]

Post by Andrew Falanga
Hello,
As strange as it may sound, yes I need help with this simple task. I've
got a problem that I've never seen before. The install works just
perfectly, but when the system reboots all I get is "GRUB " in the upper
left corner of my monitor with a flashing cursor one space to the text's
right. This occurs whether I use the automated partitioning system or
if I try and do it myself.
For the current system setup, it's a brand new MoBo with an AMD-64
processor. I have Windows XP currently installed and must dualboot the
system. Windows XP consumes 55gb of our 80gb HDD, the remainder I want
for linux (or some other free UNIX-like system). Any ideas as to what
is going wrong? I know that a few years ago there was a deficiency in
some systems for having boot files outside of a 6gb boundary. However,
I thought that only applied to Windows and that it had been fixed. What
am I missing? This is getting quite irritating.
Thanks for any help,
Andy

I dual boot using WinXP's bootloader. To do this, you'll need to:

1) Create an image of Linux's 512 byte boot sector using dd, as in:

% dd if=/hda4 of=boot.lnx bs=512

(This assumes /dev/hda4 is your Linux / partition)

2) Copy the sector file to Windows' C:, either via floppy, pen drive, or
via an external host.

3) Edit C:/BOOT.INI and edit to contain something like this:

boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition"/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
c:\boot.lnx="Fedora Linux Core 3"

(This will require you to fiddle with Windows' hidden and protected
attributes. See the following links for how to do this.)

Then, when you boot, you can choose between WinXP and Linux. If you
edit grub.conf, you will NOT need to export your boot sector again (the
way you had to do when using LILO).

The process is also described at:

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+Win9x+Grub-HOWTO/index.html
http://www.lesbell.com.au/Home.nsf/0/96ed97b0093f9fb44a2568c60036ca4e?OpenDocument

Randy