Can't boot into windows after installing Debian Sarge

kpg · 12-06-2004, 06:32 AM

Hi!

Here's the situation. I have a 40GB harddrive with Win98,WinXP and Slackware
10 running. I had about 3GB of free space on which I installed Debian Sarge.
Debian Sarge installed grub as its boot loader in the MBR. Now, Sarge and
Slack worked, but Windows now would not boot. So I made the entry in the
lilo.conf file from Slack ( from which Windows was booting ) for Sarge. Still
no luck and I'm stumped. Can anyone suggest a way out of this?

Thanks,
Kaustubh

TigerOC · 12-06-2004, 10:17 AM

You need an entry like this in /boot/grub/menu.lst;

title Windows 95/98/NT/2000
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

if you have a look at the file /boot/grub/device.map it will list the drives you have in the format hdX,Y and you just need to specify Y which is the partition number -1 because grub starts from 0. so if the partition is say hda5 then it will be hd0,4. You then need to then do update-grub

kpg · 12-06-2004, 07:12 PM

The corresponding entries are already present.

title Windows NT/2000/XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

Still doesn't work.

TigerOC · 12-07-2004, 01:18 AM

You say you have '98 and XP on that drive but on which partitions are they?

kpg · 12-07-2004, 02:57 AM

Win 98 is on /dev/hda1 ( C: ) and Win XP is on /dev/hda5 ( D: ).

TigerOC · 12-07-2004, 03:34 AM

so the parameters for '98 are (hd0,0) and xp (hd0,4). Make sure you are writing the grub file to the mbr after editing. You can also do a manual entry when you get to grub boot splash by using the edit option.

kpg · 12-07-2004, 09:43 AM

Can you tell me what the menu.lst should look like? Should I have seperate entries for win 98 and xp? I tried that from lilo, but it didn't work. Here's what I put in lilo.conf.

other = /dev/hda5
label = Windows
table = /dev/hda

TigerOC · 12-07-2004, 10:00 AM

In addition to your Linux kernels you should have the following separate entries;

title Windows '98
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +

Note; you cannot have lilo and grub. When grub is installed it will remove lilo

kpg · 12-07-2004, 10:05 AM

Isn't the last entry similar to what I put in lilo? It didn't work from lilo. I'll try in grub. My sarge kernel won't boot now. It gives an error while mounting. So planning to re-installing sarge tomorrow. Will keep you guys posted on what happens. Thanks for the replies.

kpg · 12-07-2004, 09:48 PM

I tried

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

in menu.lst. It says something about requesting an invalid device. However, when I remove makeactive, it says NTLDR not found. Guess I'm going to have to reinstall windows.

Kaustubh

TigerOC · 12-08-2004, 01:20 AM

You don't have to re-install Windblows. Just use the install cd to re-install the boot loader on the mbr. To clear the mbr you can also boot with with a M$ boot disk and at the prompt do fdisk /mbr

kpg · 12-08-2004, 01:39 AM

Hey yeah. Thanx a lot man. You just saved me a lot of time! I'll create a boot disk for linux, reinstall windblows's boot loader and reinstall grub correctly.

Kaustubh