[NTLUG:Discuss] Boot problem After Removal of GRUB

[Terry Henderson]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:14:34 -0600, Robert Pearson <rdpears at gmail.com> wrote:
> The Problem:
> Windows 2000 will not boot the first time (power on) from the IDE
> Primary Master. Setup does not show this device detected until after
> the hardware Reset.
> The first boot fails with the error message "Reboot and Select proper
> Boot device or Insert Boot Media in Selected Boot device". Repeated
> power off/on's produce the same result.
> If I press the hardware Reset button on the "white box" clone after

"white box"  as in the Linux Distribution?  i.e. http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/

Or is "white box" a PC?

> the first failure, the Windows 2000 disk will boot after a long delay
> in Setup and several seconds of a blank screen.

Not sure what that's all about...
Did you choose to write boot loader to MBR of primary on first IDE
port? (That's what you should have done.)

> The Windows 2000 IDE Primary Master will boot normally if I insert any
> non-bootable drive in the IDE Primary Slave, which is the second
> removable slot, .
> 

Now wait a minute, isn't the Primary Slave where you installed Linux? 
If so, that drive needs to stay where  it is.
(You can't change hardware configuration without also changing
software configuration to match.)

> How I got this Problem:
> I have an Intel P4 2.4 GHz "white box" clone. I have had this machine

Sorry, but you might have to explain what a "white box" clone is, some
of us may not  fully understand.  (Actually the "white box" detail
might not be important in the first place.  We might be better off to
just eliminate "white box" from the conversation -  your call on
that.)

> running Windows 2000 on different disks since 2000. It currently has a
> Western Digital 80 GB in a removable chassis.
> This 80 GB drive is the IDE Primary Master. It has been running
> successfully on this disk since 2003. The only other device is an
> Optorite DVD+/-RW on the IDE Secondary Master.
> I added a second Western Digital 80 GB drive (identical to the first)
> in another removable chassis as the IDE Primary Slave.
> I installed Debian "sarge", with GRUB for the multi-boot loader, on
> the IDE Primary Slave drive. During the Debian install I turned off

The only way that's going to work is if you tell your BIOS to boot to
the slave, (when you want to boot Linux).  If you want a dual boot
system, you need to write boot loader to the first IDE primary drive's
MBR.  But I think that's what you've done anyway.  Right?

> the power (but did not remove) the Windows 2000 disk in the IDE

You won't change boot sequence by turning off power to one drive or
the other.  The only way to change the boot sequence is change it in
CMOS settings.

> Primary Master removable slot. GRUB saw the Windows 2000 removable
> device but complained it "could not access" it. The power was off-How
> did GRUB see the drive?


Grub had instructions to boot Win-2K on first IDE port's primary drive
but power was off - no mystery there.  (Grub doesn't "see the drive",
the BIOS does.  Grub [only] contains boot instructions.)

> When I booted with both drives powered on the GRUB menu came up
> showing both drives and everything worked fine.

As it should.

> I could boot either OS as long as both drives were powered on. If I

As it should.  (That's normal.)

> powered off the Debian drive (Primary Slave) the Windows (Primary
> Master) would not boot. If I powered off the Windows drive, Debian
> booted fine with some message from GRUB about the other disk. This is
> normal but not what I wanted.
> 
> What I wanted:
> Two separate OS's on two separate removable drives. One *nix plus Windows ??.
> Boot would be controlled by the GRUB multi-boot loader depending on
> which drives were powered on. Debian or Windows 2000 or both.
> Is it possible? Or should I just buy VMware?

No. Not possible.  You can't have it both ways. 

> 
> Solutions I have tried:
> (1) Went to Western Digital's Web site and ran the diagnostics on my disk.
> (2) Booted from the Windows 2000 Cd and ran Repair
> (3) Booted from the Windows CD and ran Recovery console and ERD
> (4) Booted from Windows Boot disk set and ran Repair, Recovery console and ERD
> (5) I set up the Windows 2000 Recovery console and did:
>     (a) Fixboot - more than once
>     (b) Fixmbr - more than once
>     (c) Re-installed Windows 2000 (the OS is on it's own partition)
>         (1) reconnected all the applications
>     (d) Finally gave in and used the Windows98SE boot disk and ran fdisk /MBR
>         (1) The first time I ran fdisk /MBR it reported there were no
> fixed disks present?
>         (2) The second it appeared to work but did not fix the problem
>     (e) I have scoured the Web via Google for two weeks trying to resolve this.
> 
> Conclusions:
> GRUB altered something either in CMOS or somewhere else that I don't know about.
> It is obvious to me that I don't know enough to do this.
> It looks like I am several years behind everyone else.
> I have learned a lot about Google searches.
> 
> A Side Note:
> I tried this once before in 2003 on an HP AMD machine using one disk.
> I had the same problems and symptoms when I tried to remove GRUB and
> SuSE and return to Windows 2000. The install of SuSE to an open
> partition of a working Windows 2000 machine went well. Everything
> worked fine until I decided to remove SuSE. I finally got the disk to
> work again in another machine by completely re-formatting it. in the
> process of removing GRUB I destroyed the HP CMOS somehow. It would not
> recognize any drives after a while. There was not an easy fix for
> that.
> 
> All help is appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Robert