Member Avatar for shadowchinna

I have installed fedora 14 in one partition in my PC. I want to install windows 7 in another partition.problem is if I install windows 7, windows 7 boots primarly without asking option for both OS's.
what to I have to do?????????????????

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by rubberman

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Short, practical fix for (and a follow-up to and ): you don't need to wipe both installs. Restoring Fedora's boot manager from rescue media will bring back a boot menu and let you chain to Windows. Fedora 14 predates the GRUB2 switch, so most Fedora‑14 installs use the legacy GRUB tools; the rescue → chroot → reinstall‑grub flow shown below is the usual repair path. (fedoraproject.org)

Boot a Fedora live/rescue image, let the installer/rescue mount your Fedora under /mnt/sysimage (or mount it yourself), then chroot and reinstall GRUB to the disk MBR. Substitute the correct device (eg /dev/sda) for your machine:

# mount /dev/sdXN /mnt/sysimage         # if not auto-mounted
# mount /dev/sdYM /mnt/sysimage/boot    # only if /boot is separate
# chroot /mnt/sysimage
# grub-install /dev/sda
# exit
# reboot

If grub-install fails, the legacy interactive method works (from rescue):

# grub
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
grub> root (hd0,1)      # use the values returned by find
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit

Both approaches are documented in Fedora rescue/howto guides. (fedoraproject.org)

If your machine is UEFI or uses GRUB2, the commands differ: bind‑mount /dev /proc /sys, chroot, use grub2-install and regenerate the config with grub2-mkconfig (output path differs for BIOS vs EFI). Also use efibootmgr when fixing UEFI entries. Example workflow:

# mount --bind /dev /mnt/sysimage/dev  && mount --bind /proc /mnt/sysimage/proc && mount --bind /sys /mnt/sysimage/sys
# chroot /mnt/sysimage
# grub2-install /dev/sda
# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg    # or the EFI path on UEFI systems
# exit
# reboot

See GRUB2/UEFI docs for exact paths and efibootmgr usage. (docs.redhat.com)

Quick cautions: confirm the correct disk with fdisk -l or lsblk before writing to MBR, and check boot mode with test -d /sys/firmware/efi && echo EFI || echo Legacy. If uncertain, post the fdisk -l and cat /etc/fstab outputs (hide serials) so people here can give exact commands. If this feels risky, backing up data first or asking for step‑by‑step help is the safest option. (discussion.fedoraproject.org)

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Member Avatar for NardCake

You should've installed the GRUB bootloader, I've never done it after the fact so I can't help you.

Member Avatar for rubberman

Windows assumes it owns the system. Normally, if you want to dual boot a system, you install Windows first, and then Linux. Linux will install a grub boot loader and recognize the Windows system, allowing you to boot either that or the Linux system as desired. IE, start over, and install Windows first.

FWIW, you CAN install GRUB after the fact, but you will probably spend more time and effort in retro-fitting it than reinstalling everything as mentioned above.

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