[Nottingham] Partition problem

[Michael Leuty]

On Thu, 2004-04-29 at 22:57, Philip Scott wrote:
> Could you post your GRUB configuration file for us to rub our collective chins 
> over please? (Usually /boot/grub/menu.lst or something similar)

Thanks for your response.

/boot/grub/grub.conf is as follows

default 3
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd1,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb2
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2188.nptl)
	root (hd1,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2188.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi rhgb
	initrd /initrd-2.4.22-1.2188.nptl.img
title Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2115.nptl)
	root (hd1,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi rhgb
	initrd /initrd-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl.img
title Windows XP
	rootnoverify (hd0,0)
	chainloader +1
title Win4Lin
	root (hd1,0)
	kernel /win4lin ro  hdc=ide-scsi rhgb root=/dev/hdb2

> Can you mount hda1?

Fedora doesn't like mounting NTFS partitions.

I have a big red book suitable for putting your budgie down which
suggested that I printed out the partition table using fdisk, which gave
the following result:

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40037760000 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77578 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *         1     17277   8707576+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2         17277     71353  27254682    c  Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda3         71353     77568   3132675   83  Linux

Disk /dev/hdb: 40.9 GB, 40982151168 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 79408 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1   *         1       203    102280+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb2           204     75768  38084760   83  Linux
/dev/hdb3         75769     79408   1834560   82  Linux swap

The big red book went on to suggest that I boot from a rescue CD and
then use fdisk to display partition information and compare it to the
table I had printed - and it was.

> For fixing the geometry, perhaps using fdisk's advanced features (type x), and 
> then 'fix partition order' (type f) might work. **DISCLAIMER** I don't 
> actually know what this actually does - it just looks hopefull ;) 

"fdisk /dev/hda" then x then f gives:
"Nothing to do, ordering is correct already".

However, v gives: "Warning, partition 1 overlaps partition 2, partition
2 overlaps partition 3, 10329 unallocated sectors."

Using "fdisk /dev/hdb", v just gives "62 unallocated sectors".

It looks to me as though hdb is OK, but something is up with hda. My
problem is that I can't boot WinXP from hda1. I presume that the
ultimate solution would be to re-partition hda from scratch, reinstall
WinXP in hda1, then use grub-install to restore access to Fedora on hdb.
But I was hoping there was some simple way of solving the problem.
-- 
Michael Leuty <mike at leuty.net>