Jonathan Berry wrote:
On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 10:54:52 -0500, Nat Gross
<natgross.rentalsystems@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Robert Locke wrote:[snip]
On Mon, 2005-02-28 at 17:55 -0500, Nat Gross wrote:
<snip>
I thought so, too. But I just mounted both (vfat and ntfs) partitions
under FC3, and there is no boot.ini file. At this point I am certain
that for some reason (maybe due to an earlier install of Windows)
Windows kept the boot.ini on C, hda, and used that to boot from E.
[snip]I used the 'search for files' applet and turned on the hidden files option.So to speak. GRUB is passing control to the NTLDR and BOOT.INI files. Remember that they are hidden/system files usually, so depending on how you tried to locate them might be why you did not see them (probably a pipe dream)???
--RobThanks again.
-nat
Hidden files in Linux are different from in Windows. Windows has a
file attribute that makes a file hidden. In Linux, a file with a
filename beginning with a dot "." is hidden.
Thanks for the tip.
What you need to do isI have both Windows partitions mounted, and ntldr boot.ini is nowhere to be found. Furthermore, my previous search found a lnk(shortcut) file that I had named 'bootIniOnCdrive.lnk'! Evidently, after my previous Windows crash, I used that shortcut quite a bit! (That was [relative] eons ago.)
to just mount your windows partitions and then list the contents of
each partition. For instance, if you mount your NTFS parition on
/mnt/windows/E (this is not a required place, just an example), then
open a terminal and type the command:
ls /mnt/windows/E
If you see ntldr and boot.ini listed in the output, everything is
fine. You don't need to search for them as they are necessarily in
the root of the partition (this is, they will not be in a folder). Similarly, do the same with your vfat partition, just in case. If you
do not find it in either place, then you do have a problem and you
will need to restore these somehow. Probably with the recovery
console and FIXBOOT as already suggested.
Jonathan
Now, in case you are wondering, why I am not *really* paranoid; I have my data mounted on fc3 and usable (Java stuff).
Also, I made the decision to re-align everything and go with Linux all-the-way. And for the minor stuff that I would like to boot Windows for, *maybe* it can wait for a cd from MS. (I don't trust the ntfs mount for writing.)
And to let the great folks here in on a little secret, my drive C was already crashed (this time around too) and was hoping that the fc3 install/grub will not only give me fc3, but also the Win back. (if grub had ntldr-equivalent code....).
whew! off my soapbox.
Now, having said this, I am a little afraid to boot the Win CD and run FIXBOOT, because a)some win gurus say that since my system has sp2, the original cd is useless; and b) I want to be assured that it won't blow my fc3/grub away. (too much invested in this, this week.)
So, if I get your vote(s) and assurance that it won't hurt running fixboot, I'll go for it.
THANK YOU ALL. -nat
