INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

[Joshua Foster]

Trying this again, as it appears the first message didn't get through...

We have a 4-gigabyte hard drive with two Windows NT 4 partitions which we
wish to boot with GRUB.  I know the NT Bootloader will handle this, but we
need to do it with GRUB (we’re working on some GRUB modifications that will
auto-boot one of the partitions based on some hardware parameters).

Our procedure is this:

1) Install the first WinNT partition on the first 2 gigs
2) Boot with a GRUB boot floppy, hide the partition with “hide (hd0,0)”  (We
want the second WinNT not to see the first one so it will install its own
bootloader)
3) Install the second WinNT partition on the last 2 gigs (leaving a few
megabytes free at the end)

At this point, everything works great, and we’re able to boot either
partition through the GRUB boot disk with the following commands (assuming X
= partition to boot and Y = other WinNT partition):
  hide (hd0,Y)
  unhide (hd0,X)
  rootnoverify (hd0,X)
  chainloader +1
  makeactive
  boot

Now we’d like make a third partition for GRUB (out of the last few megs on
the disk) and boot from that instead of booting from the floppy. So we do
the following steps:
4) Create a FAT partition out of those last few megs on the disk, copy the
contents of the GRUB floppy into it.
5) Boot with the GRUB floppy, install GRUB to the MBR using “root (hd0,2)”
and “setup (hd0)”

>From this point on, neither OS will boot.  GRUB loads from the third
partition, but trying to boot either WinNT partition (with the above
commands) we get an NT error about INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE.  Even if we try
to go back and use the GRUB boot floppy, we still get the same error. 
However, if we boot with a DOS floppy and rewrite the MBR with “fdisk /mbr”,
we’re once again able to boot either partition using the GRUB floppy.

I understand this may be a WinNT error and not a GRUB error, but there is
something being written to the MBR during the “setup (hd0)” that prevents
either partition from loading, whether GRUB is run from the third partition
or the floppy…

Any suggestions as to what is going on here?

Thanks,

Joshua Foster
Defense Technologies, Inc.

________________________________________

Joshua Foster
Sr. Computer Programmer
1627 Spencer Mountain Rd., Ranlo
Gastonia, NC 28054
(704)824-0199, ext. 207
(704)824-0241 Fax
www.dtiweb.net
address@hidden