Ok Linux works but now windows wont boot

[Bigdogbmx]

I have 2 Hard disks in my main rig and for a while now Ive had Redhat on the 4gig one and windows 2000 pro on the 20 gig one. The way it was set up before was that I boot from the smaller linux drive which has a graphical boot loader and I chose DOS (windows) or Red Hat Linux.
The resolution was always messed up on red hat so I reinstalled it today and I think its fixed. But now in teh boot loader if I choose DOS I get this text on a black screen.

Booting 'DOS'
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader + 1

Does anyone know what this means and what I should do to enable windows to boot? Am I best off unplugging the linux drive and using win2k repair disk to fix teh boot sector on the windows drive then choosing which drive to boot from in BIOS?

 

[Mustard Duster]

You can use smart boot manager. Install it to your mbr on the windows partition. Then you can choose which drive to boot off of when it loads. This is much easier then always going into the bios.

 

[injinj]

Looks like grub is trying to boot w2k and can't find it. That may be because the drive order was swapped, bios is assigning different drive ids than when linux was installed, or it's trying to boot the wrong partition on the w2k drive for some reason. I'd think that if you are booting the 4g drive, that the 20g drive will still boot on it's own as the C: drive.

 

[Bigdogbmx]

Lol so would I matey but nope. If i try to boot from teh windows 20gig one i get a black screen with a little flashing cursor in the top left. Its been that way since I installed Red Hat on the secind drive. Also I just used the win2k boot disk to do the 'fixboot' thing and it still wont boot form the main win drive, the same flashing cursor on a blank screen syndrome.
Do you think I should try changing the slave/master jumpers about a bit on the drives and see if I can just boot into windows from grub?

 

[Titan386]

Does Windows reside on the primary master or slave hard drive?

If master, then your Grub config should look like this:

rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader + 1

When you installed Red Hat the second time, where did you tell it to put the bootloader?

 

[Bigdogbmx]

The windows drive is on its own channel as the master, and teh linux drive is the slave sharing the secondary channel with a CD RW set as the master. This is the really brilliant bit, I cant remember where the boot loader is. But seeing as Ive had teh drives in teh same setup for a while and Ive only changed the Linux drive I think the boot loader is on the 4gig Linux drive in the master boot record because I remember setting it there once. Today when I reinstalled Linux I cant recall it asking me where to put the boot loader. The wierdest thing to me is that the windows drive wont boot on its own. I dont see how that could happen wherever the boot loader is, If it was on the windows drive it should open up when I try to boot from that, and if its on teh linux drive surely windows own boot loader should fire up when i try to boot from there.

EDIT- I tell a lie, the windows drive is master on the secondary channel, and obviously that means the linux drive and CDRW are on the primary channel. So what you said about what the boot loader should show makes sense titan386.

 

[Bigdogbmx]

So does anyone know if you can go anywhere from the screen showing the message

Booting 'DOS'
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

 

[Titan386]

First, I'd suggest you try making the Windows drive primary master. I've seen people have weird booting problems when Windows is not on the primary master drive.

Then, try booting up Grub. You should see an option to enter a Grud command line by pressing a key. Do that and enter the following commands:

rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader + 1
boot

See if you Windows boots. If its the primary master, and assuming the Windows install is undamaged, it should.

The problem you describe with the Windows drive not being able to boot by itself could indicate that your bootloader is on that drive's MBR. While Grub does live in the MBR, only part of it can fit in there, so it must be able to find the rest of it in order to fully boot. Perhaps Grub is having trouble finding its files, for whatever reason.

If nothing else works, try booting to a Windows recovery console, and running fixmbr. Verify that Windows works afterwards, and then try to reinstall Linux, being careful abou where the bootloader is installed. You should be able to stick it on the MBR of the Windows drive without any trouble.

 

[Bigdogbmx]

Thanks for the info Ill try that now. As much as I am having fun mossing about in linux I think I want to go play counterstrike and not feel like a noob.

 

[Bigdogbmx]

Woohoo Im back in windows. I havent sorted the linux drive yet but that should be easy. I switched the IDE cables over so the win drive is primary master and then used teh fixmbr command in teh recovery console just as you suggested Titan. Good job you told me that command existed because I woouldnt have realised otherwise.