GRUB fails to boot Win98

[Graham Smith]

Dear GRUB gurus,

I have having problems booting my system using GRUB.  It is a dual boot system 
running RedHat Linux 7.3 (though I was having the same problem with 7.2) and 
Microsoft Windows 98SE.  The system will boot quite happily if I use a GRUB 
boot floppy or if I use LILO from the hard disk but if I put GRUB on the hard 
disk then while Linux boots OK Win98SE fails with the error 'Error 25: Disk 
read error'.

The machine has two IDE hard drives, the first (/dev/hda, hd0) is a 13Gb disk 
with a single partition dedicated to Win98SE, the second (/dev/hdb, hd1) is a 
20Gb disk with three partitions, the first is ~13Gb and is also dedicated to 
Win98SE.  The second is ~6Gb and is used as the Linux root filesystem, the 
third is ~600Mb and is the Linux swap partition. (detailed information output 
from fdisk and GRUB is below).

GRUB (version 0.91-4 as supplied in redHat 7.3) is installed in /boot/grub and 
I have tried putting the stage1 image both in the MBR of the first disk (hd0) 
and also at the start of the (hd1,4) partition and then chain loading it from 
LILO installed in the MBR of (hd0).  Both locations for the stage1 image 
cause the problem. But the same version of GRUB on a floppy works OK.

The commands used to boot Linux and Win98SE using GRUB are shown below in a 
copy of my menu.lst file.  If I issue these commands when booted from a 
floppy everything is OK, if I issue these commands by hand when booted from 
the hard disk then everything is OK for Linux and is OK until I get the 'Disk 
read error' when I enter the 'boot' command at the end of the sequence to 
boot Win98SE.  The system then prompts me to continue and returns me to the 
GRUB command prompt.  From there if I try to boot either Windows or Linux the 
machine locks up and requires a hard reset.

I have checked through all the documentation and searched the web and while I 
have found other people with very similar configurations I haven't found 
anyone else with this problem.  I am probably doing something silly but would 
apreciate your help in diagnosing the problem.

I wondered if the problem is something to do wih having GRUB on the second 
disk and then trying to boot Windows from the first, but I have seen others 
doing this successfully.  I am prepared to try and diagnose the problem - I 
am a software enginer by trade - but I'm not sure where to start!

GRUB is an ace tool, keep up the good work.

Graham Smith (address@hidden)


Contents of /boot/grub/menu.lst:
===================================================
#boot=/dev/hdb5
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,4)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-4)
        debug
        root (hd1,4)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-4 ro root=/dev/hdb5
        initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-4.img

title Windows 98
        debug
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
        chainloader +1
        makeactive
=====================================================


Disk geometry as reported by fdisk -l
=====================================================
Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 1582 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *         1      1582  12707383+   c  Win95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/hdb: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 2495 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1             1      1700  13655218+   c  Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdb2          1701      2495   6385837+   5  Extended
/dev/hdb5   *      1701      2415   5743206   83  Linux
/dev/hdb6          2416      2495    642568+  82  Linux swap
=====================================================


>From the grub-shell (which matches info obtained when using grub boot floppy):
=====================================================
grub> geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 1582/255/63, The number of sectors = 25429824, /dev/hda
   Partition num: 0,  Filesystem type is fat, partition type 0xc

grub> geometry (hd1)
drive 0x81: C/H/S = 2495/255/63, The number of sectors = 40088160, /dev/hdb
   Partition num: 0,  Filesystem type is fat, partition type 0xc
   Partition num: 4,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
   Partition num: 5,  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
=====================================================