Dual-boot with Vista and Fedora on seperate disks

Hi,
I have vista installed on a single SATA disk. I have added a new PATA drive which I want to install Fedora too and the dual-boot.
I have been following this installation guide: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Fedora
The fedora installer recognises my drives as sda and sdb. So I select sdb for this installation and then choose sdb where it asks "What drive would you like to boot this installation from?" and tick the "Review and modify partitioning layout" button.
I then choose to install GRUB to /dev/sdb and remove and check "Configure advanced boot loader options". Then I choose to install Boot Loader record on /dev/sdb1 First sector of boot partition and install Fedora.

Now I boot into windows and run EasyBCD. When I go to add a linux entry it lists the following:
Drive 0
Partition 0 (Linux native - 0 GB)
Partition 1 (???? - 37GB)
Drive 1
Partition 0 (NTFS - 75GB)
So I choose Partition 1 and add the entry.

Now, when I restart, I choose the option to boot Linux and get this error:
Loading new partition
Bootsector from C.H. Hockstatter
Cannot load from harddisk.
Insert systemdisk and press any key
Any ideas????????
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Thanks for the reply....

I tried the tutorial but no luck.

I can go to BIOS and change which disk boots first and am then able to boot up Fedora. Will this change my sda and sdb mappings?

I had Vista on my SATA disk and added a PATA disk to install Fedora too. When I ran the install I installed to sdb (the PATA disk).

But now, when I go back into windows I get disk0 as the PATA disk and disk1 as the SATA disk?? Not sure why it has swapped around.

I also think Fedora now recognises the PATA disk as the first disk. ie

df -h
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 34G 2.9G 30G 9% /
/dev/sda1 190M 13M 169M 7% /boot
tmpfs 506M 12K 506M 1% /dev/shm

I will take a look at my menu.1st file and see if I can add this to NeoGrub.
 
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^ the fact that changing the boot order lets Fedora work means you've missed a step in the documentation.

If it boots by changing the drive order, that means that GRUB is installed to the MBR and not the bootsector.
 
Thanks Guru,
I have made sure in step 4 of the tutorial, I select 'First sector of boot partition' to install GRUB and not the MBR.

However, in the step before that I get an option of 'What drive would you like to boot this installation from?'. Previously I selected sdb (the PATA drive I am wanting to install Fedora too), but now I am going to try leaving this as sda (the Vista disk) and see if that helps.

I'll post back with the results....

Addendum:

still no good...

I installed Fedora again, leaving the 'What drive would you like to boot this installation from?' set to it's default sda (Vista disk). I then went and re-configured easyBCD as directed in tutorial.

Vista still boots fine but now when I choose to boot Fedora, I just get a blank screen with GRUB and a flashing cursor.

Any ideas?
 
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Vista and Fedora 9 on Seapate disks

Hi
I've been trying almost the same configuration as above without any success.
I have Vista on a Sata disk and installed Fedora 9 on a Pata disk
I created the partitions manually to avoid the LVM problem.
I told the installation that Linux should be loaded from the Pata
I installed GRUB at the first boot sector of the / partition on the Pata (not MBR)
I direct EasyBCD 1.72 to boot at this location, but when I restart, it ends like this:

Boot part 2.60 Bootsector (c) 1992-2005 etc etc
Loading new partition
Bootsector from C.H.Hochstätter
GRUB_

where the "_" after GRUB is blinking.

I tried to install Ubuntu along with EasyBCD, and it worked fine, but since I'm more used to Fedora (and some applications I wanted to use is as far as I know mainly are made for use with Fedora), I uninstalled Ubuntu and tried to install Fedora instead, but after 5 or 6 unsuccessful attempts I'm about to give up.

Any suggestions please, - is there a problem with Fedora 9 and dual booting with EasyBCD?

Best regards
Vidar
 
Hi Terry
Thank you for welcoming me.
Yes, I forgot to mention in my list that I followed the directions in the Wiki.
Cheers
Vidar
 
Vidar, Fedora has some problems installing to a second disk. What you should do is create a small ext3 partition on the Vista drive as /boot, then you can put the / partition anywhere (on the second disk, too) and you should be able to dual-boot OK.

The other option is to manually configure the dual-boot procedure with EasyBCD's NeoGrub feature by configuring menu.lst to reflect your Fedora setup as shown at NeoGrub Linux - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki though the first approach is more recommended.
 
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