Trouble booting into Win98

islamguide.com · 2006-12-13 16:38:30

The following are the relevant sections of my /boot/grub/menu.lst file

Win98 partition; /dev/hda4
Able to mount as vfat partition in /etc/fstab

title Windows 98
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

After selecting the option on boot, the screen displays part of the code above and simply hangs there.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Lone_Wolf · 2006-12-13 19:39:54

I very much doubt the 'boot' line is necessary.

Try removing it.

islamguide.com · 2006-12-13 21:12:44

oh, that was how it was initially, and it didn't work.

i read about the map function somewhere.. is it necessary in this case?

Sigi · 2006-12-13 21:38:13

I don't know if this is necessary, but is the bootable flag of the partition set?

T-Dawg · 2006-12-14 02:15:46

The bootable flag is a windows thing. When you install windows, it installs its code to the mbr which is to look at the partition table (part of the mbr) for the bootable flag and boot that partition. Thats why if you dual boot into windows without it set as the bootable partition it will reinstall its bootloader into the mbr and set it as the bootable partion. Grub doesn't work like that. Instead you choose which paritition to boot from according to your menu.lst.

I believe in the case of Windows 98 for some asshole reason it must be the first partition on the hardrive. You can trick it into thinking it is by using map in your grub.conf:

map (hd0,0) (hd0,3)
map (hd0,3) hd0,0)

and keep the rest the same.

islamguide.com · 2006-12-15 07:55:04

Alas, it didn't work..
just hung after displaying the command list.

Will fdisk /mbr fix this?

My /etc/fstab

/dev/hda4 /mnt/hda4 vfat noauto,owner,users 0 2

allows me to mount the win partition in windows perfectly so I know it's not thrashed or anything.

Romashka · 2006-12-15 21:15:00

I have this in my menu.lst:

title  Windows XP
root   (hd0,2)
rootnoverify
chainloader +1

makeactive and boot options are not needed when you have active and boot attributes set for your Windows partition.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-12-13 16:38:30

Trouble booting into Win98

#2 2006-12-13 19:39:54

Re: Trouble booting into Win98

#3 2006-12-13 21:12:44

Re: Trouble booting into Win98

#4 2006-12-13 21:38:13

Re: Trouble booting into Win98

#5 2006-12-14 02:15:46

Re: Trouble booting into Win98

#6 2006-12-15 07:55:04

Re: Trouble booting into Win98

#7 2006-12-15 21:15:00

Re: Trouble booting into Win98

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