Fedora 10 + Vista + EasyBCD

gizgiz

Member
So, here's the deal.

I had Ubuntu + Vista working with BCD before, but then I decided to swap my Ubuntu with Fedora Core 10. Got it all installed and happy - then I got cheeky and installed Grub onto the MBR.

Followed the wiki to get BOOTMGR working once again, but now I can only boot into Vista - there's no selection screen, even though I reinstalled Fedora properly (as stated by the wiki) and put an entry for it in EasyBCD.

Code:
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
description             Windows Boot Manager
default                 {eac8a377-6ab3-11dd-94a0-001bfc2de3b7}
displayorder            {eac8a377-6ab3-11dd-94a0-001bfc2de3b7}
                        {eac8a377-6ab3-11dd-94a0-001bfc2de3b7}
timeout                 5

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {eac8a377-6ab3-11dd-94a0-001bfc2de3b7}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows Vista SP1 (Business)
bootdebug               No
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {b3d50e0b-c2a4-11dd-97c9-806e6f6e6963}
nx                      OptIn
pae                     ForceDisable
sos                     No
debug                   No

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier              {eac8a377-6ab3-11dd-94a0-001bfc2de3b7}
path                    \NST\nst_grub.mbr
description             Fedora Core 10
I have a feeling it's got something to do with the identifiers being the same. Also, doing certain things in EasyBCD, like installing NeoGrub, results in an "unhandled exception".

Tried reading around about how to get things going with Grub on the MBR, but apparently that requires too much fiddling around for me. I'd like to get it working without having my comp to ditch me again :smile:

Thanks!
 
Hi,

Look closely - the identifiers are not the same.

Delete the Fedora entry in EasyBCD and re-create it once more... it's been corrupted somehow (as you can see, it doesn't have values for "device" so it'll never show in the menu).
 
Tried it several times, still doesn't work. I don't get any "device" values. Should I try reinstalling Fedora/grub? Or is there a manual way to input the device?
 
Ah - I see the problem.
You don't have any "device" field set for the "Windows Boot Manager"

Do Diagnostics | Reset BCD Settings first, it'll fix the corrupt base BCD configuration.. Then add the Fedora entry and you should be good to go.

Good luck.
 
Sounds like it'll work, but I'm getting "unhandled exception" errors after selecting the drive.

Thanks again for your help.
 
Please send me a PM with your email address + agreement not to redistribute any beta builds, and I'll send you a copy of EasyBCD 2.0 beta which resolves this issue.
 
I was not sure if I should post here or make a new thread, but it seemed related enough that I decided to just ask here. I also have a vista installation with Fedora 10. The fedora installation is working but I cannot access it since the bootloader select menu never shows up.

Code:
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device                  partition=C:
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default                 {e8709fb6-fa5f-11db-be4d-e219ece5282e}
displayorder            {e8709fb6-fa5f-11db-be4d-e219ece5282e}
                        {625b2b81-c032-11dd-bce2-001fc6555507}
toolsdisplayorder       {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout                 5

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {e8709fb6-fa5f-11db-be4d-e219ece5282e}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows Vista
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {e8709fb7-fa5f-11db-be4d-e219ece5282e}
nx                      OptOut

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier              {625b2b81-c032-11dd-bce2-001fc6555507}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \NST\nst_grub-1E78B23F853D857D422A552E65EB04A2.mbr
description             Fedora 10

The linux and empty partitions show up as Partition 3 (???? - 9 Gb). It's weird, I installed
the 64 bit edition of Fedora 10 and it worked just fine, I'm trying to understand why this one does not. Grub is installed to the Fedora partition.
 
Same issue

I've got partition 0 and partition 4 with the question marks. Any thoughts? Can boot fine into Vista, but when I try to boot any of the Fedora partitions, I get a
'Cannot boot from harddisk'

Steve
 
Make sure GRUB is installed to the partition's bootsector and not to the MBR.

The reason ??? appear in EasyBCD is because Fedora uses a software-based RAID partition by default, which is a custom format not understood by generic partition managers such as those available for EasyBCD under Windows, and therefore it cannot determine its partition type.
 
Hello,

I have been using EasyBCD with Vista and OpenSUSE for a few months now it had been working great. However now I have exactly the same problem as described above by 'gizgiz'. Due to a problem in OpenSUSE I tried to repair the installation and managed to overwrite the Vista bootloader with GRUB. With EasyBCD and a Vista recovery I managed to get the Vista loader back in the MBR.

Now as above any entry I do in EasyBCD for Linux/OpenSUSE does not show up in the Vista loader, it does show in EasyBCD but also without 'device', e.g:

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {84fc22db-c1d2-11dd-94ad-9ae3cc00ba72}
path \NST\nst_grub.mbr
description NeoSmart Linux 1

Maybe 'gizgiz' got this solved? Maybe EasyBCD beta solved the problem?
If so can I buy it please?

Also when using Reset BCD storage, I get 'Unhandled expectation has occured.... etc'.
I'm really stuck, any help appreciated!

Cheers, Marcel.
 
Hi all,
I am new to Vista but have had several former dual boot configs with SuSe and Win98, XP and Fedora and XP. Now I am fuzzing with Vista and Fedora 10.
I can only boot into Fedora manually by using the grub console. That works but is pretty uncomfortable.

Make sure GRUB is installed to the partition's bootsector and not to the MBR.
I installed Linux grub into the /boot partition - away from Vista.
What are we talking about here anyway: grub or EasyBCD's grub4dos?????

I do not quite understand how all that stuff works: It looks as though EasyBCD installed a grub (grub4dos??) pointing to \NST\NeoGrub.mbr which reads menu.lst.
From there we hop to the native Linux grub. That right?

What happens when I boot is a menu consisting of Vista and Fedora 10. Great. Vista boots all right. But when I select Fedora I get what I suspect is a genuine grub menu for a fraction of a second. Could that be the "real" Linux grub? Then I would insert a timeout= something hoping it would let me check what's there.
After that I run into the grub shell where I have to type
root (hd,02) kernel /vmlinuz-kernelversion initrd /initrd-kernelversion
boot. Although I checked that these entries are in the Linux /boot/grub/menu.lst they are not found.
Then Fedora boots. But that's not the way it's supposed to be, is it?

EasyBCD tells me that

Real-mode Boot Sector
-----------------------------

identifier {same as under displayorder for Fedora 10}
device partition=C:
path \NST\NeoGrub.mbr
description fedora 10

The \NST-directory contains just the NeoGrub.mbr and menu.lst.
Can I edit menu.lst just like I would under Linux?
That is I would insert
title fedora 10
root (hdX,X) kernel /vmlinuz-kernel initrd /initrd-kernel rhgb quiet and so on?

In what way does "find --set-root --ignore-floppies /boot/grub/menu.lst
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst" work?

/boot/grub/menu.lst is obviously my Linux install. So do I have to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst under Linux??

EasyBCD Add/Remove Entries, NeoGrub tab: What does >...< The boot configuration file is locates at C:\NST\menu.lst mean. The boot configuration for Vista or for Linux or for both?

EasyBCD Add/Remove Entries, Linux tab, Drive drop-down: I have a partition there Partition 2 (Linux native 0GB) which is probably my /boot partition of 298MB or what can that be? Pretty confusing if any partition smaller than 1 GB is 0GB. But hd0,2 (grub-speak) is my /boot indeed.

I had deleted all additional Fedora entries in BCD several times an reinstalled NeoGrub several times. Sometimes I got a file \NST\NeoGrub[identifier??-many digits].mbr , but now just a plain \NST\NeoGrub.mbr.

All in all I can't say that EasyBCD makes anything easy if I'm fumbling around for roughly around 14 hours now to get fedora started. But may be it's only my fault.
By the way I do not use Fedoras LVM.

Your help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you

nanoq
 
If you setup neogrub manually it'll use a menu.lst located in the NST directory along side nst_neogrub.mbr and grub4dos. Otherwise, the neogrub mbr file just uses grub4dos to chainload the bootsector of the partition you pointed to and uses the menu.lst from there if it can be found. Check both locations for menu.lsts and add the appropriate entries there if they don't exist.
 
If you setup neogrub manually it'll use a menu.lst located in the NST directory along side nst_neogrub.mbr and grub4dos. Otherwise, the neogrub mbr file just uses grub4dos to chainload the bootsector of the partition you pointed to and uses the menu.lst from there if it can be found. Check both locations for menu.lsts and add the appropriate entries there if they don't exist.

Interesting...>.< The more I learn about neogrub, and the linux options in EasyBCD, the more I realize I could have done what i did when tri-booting Vista with XP and Ubuntu 8.10 a hell of a lot easier than the way i actually did it...
So it seems like to me that i didn't even need to setup the NeoGrub menu.lst file then? :x I could have just left it alone, and it would have used the Ubuntu menu.lst itself to load?!! :huh:

I wish this was better explained in the NeoGrub documentation found on this site...:frowning:

-Coolname007
 
Hi,
Thank you for your answer.
If you setup neogrub manually it'll use a menu.lst located in the NST directory along side nst_neogrub.mbr and grub4dos.
t's

That is exactly what I did meanwhile - and it works great.

Check both locations for menu.lsts and add the appropriate entries there if they don't exist.
ave

I have merged both menu.lst where appropriate.
The best feature is now, that I added a shortcut back to Vista in the Linux grub menu.lst. So even if someone selected to start Linux he/she can go back to starting Vista in the next (Linux) grub menu. In the latter case neosmart's grub4dos is invoked again.

Nanoq




I

Addendum:

I've got partition 0 and partition 4 with the question marks. Any thoughts? Can boot fine into Vista, but when I try to boot any of the Fedora partitions, I get a
'Cannot boot from harddisk'

Steve
I discovered a partition with 4 ?s too. I suspect Fedoras LVM. I did not manage to get that stuff to fire up. A reinstall where I did not use LVM, created a regular /boot-, /home- and / partition everything went almost o.k.
My /boot is just a mere 298 MB, which shows up as Partition blabla 0GB. At first I suspected something being messed up. But 298MB close to 0GB according to EasyBCD :wink:. Took me just one hour to find out...

nanoq

Addendum:

nanoq: manually assign the entry a device from the "Change Settings" tab.

Yep, done. Works.
Thx for your help

Nanoq

Addendum:

If you setup neogrub manually it'll use a menu.lst located in the NST directory along side nst_neogrub.mbr and grub4dos. Otherwise, the neogrub mbr file just uses grub4dos to chainload the bootsector of the partition you pointed to and uses the menu.lst from there if it can be found. Check both locations for menu.lsts and add the appropriate entries there if they don't exist.

I see. Meanwhile I have merged both menu.lst and it works.
There's now even a way back from booting into Fedora back to Vista in the "real" menu.lst in /boot. When the second (in /boot) menu shows up one can select "Other" which I renamed to " oh not Linux, back to Vista" which chainloads again neos mbr an back we are to choose between Windows and Fedora (or whatever).
After all that trouble a real discovery - on my level:wink:

Nanoq

Addendum:

Interesting...>.< The more I learn about neogrub, and the linux options in EasyBCD, the more I realize I could have done what i did when tri-booting Vista with XP and Ubuntu 8.10 a hell of a lot easier than the way i actually did it...
So it seems like to me that i didn't even need to setup the NeoGrub menu.lst file then? :x I could have just left it alone, and it would have used the Ubuntu menu.lst itself to load?!! :huh:

I wish this was better explained in the NeoGrub documentation found on this site...:frowning:

-Coolname007

ACK. I read and re-read and re-re-read the documentation. But to no avail.
By now I am asking myself why I used neosmart's grub4dos instead of Fedora's or in your case Ubuntu's grub to chainload Vista.
One could/should use dd to copy the (Vista-)bootsect to the hd or a stick just in case... In Windows-NT-times a had a dual boot with Linux. That was pretty easily achieved and I could use NT's bootloader. But that doesn't seem to work under Vista
Somehow weird to first use grub(4dos) to start grub (for Linux).

Nanoq
 
Last edited:
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