Dual-boot - WinXP gives NTLDR error
 

Hello, I've just completed setting up my PC with dual-boot and it's worked fine for about a week now. Just yesterday I booted from the WinXP side and now today when I try to boot up it says I can repair/re-install WinXP with the setup disk, but I know it's going to modify the GRUB and I then won't be able to boot from the Linux-Mint side (which is my main usage).

Any help on how I can go about with this, pls.

Regards.

Do the repair to xp with your install disk then use your Linux Mint Live/Install CD to reinstall Grub2, instructions at the link below:

http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/245

You could also go to the Ubuntu site below to Section 12. Don't know if all the options listed here are available on Mint but the Copy Live CD files method should work:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

That is very odd.
Use "fixboot" (not fixmbr) and it should fix XP, and not trash your grub MBR code.

tired the fixboot from the WinXP recovery console and it said (whatever) was written correctly, but I still get the "NTLRDR is missing" message when I select the windows partition from the grub menu.

Just to go through the steps I followed, I first tried to repair-install the current installation on WinXP but it said it would overwrite my current install and I'd lose all my files including my documents, etc.., so I didn't go ahead with it. Instead I went to the recovery console and ran the chkdsk /p command. By now grub had obviously been messed up, so I followed the link and easily got grub back to normal.

I then tried the "fixboot" command suggested by syg00 but drive letters were different in the recovery console - while the WinXP partition shows up as F:/ in WinXP, here it was showing as D:/ so I did fixboot d:
Somehow I still could not boot into WinXP, 'cos of the same NTLDR missing error.

Then I went back to the recovery console and copied ntldr & ntdetect.com from the WinXP setup CD, but ntdetect.com gave the Access Denied error. I then booted up from my Linux Mint 12 and copied ntdetect.com from the WinXP setup CD into the WinXP partition. Then tried to bootup from selecting the WinXP option from the grub menu, but no luck, and here I am.

The only time I've seen something like that is if an attempt was made to re-install grub, and it was installed to the (Windoze) partition rather than the MBR.
If fixboot won't fix it, too many sectors in the partition got trashed. That means a re-install in my experience.

The worst part of re-installing is that it wants to overwrite my current installation and I'll end up losing all my installed programs, settings, etc.,
And even worse, is it common that this could happen again? I'm really surprised how this error just came up. Is this common with dual-boot?

I was just googling around and found this link http://www.proposedsolution.com/solu...-to-restart-2/and was wondering if Step 4 could be a solution (or would it mess up things on the Linux side (or on grub)?

Does this mean that every time I have to re-install grub I would experience this and (finally) have to reinstall WinXP afresh? (Surprisingly I haven't re-installed grub before this error came up)

No.

Re-installing grub is perfectly safe. If you do it correctly.

I have a question, since I'm on a dual boot system and can access my WinXP partition by booting up from LinuxMint, where are the WinXP system files located - I just went into the root folder of my WinXP partition from LinuxMint so as to copy the contents of boot.ini here, and I I don't see boot.ini (I don't think any files would be hidden as I viewing via LinuxMint, yet I've enabled "view hidden files").
Maybe I need to copy ntldr and ntdetect.com in there instead of into the WinXP partition?

Surprisingly there seem to be no system files in the WinXP partition. Here's what's on there:
and the NTDETECT.COM and ntldr are there because I copied them there.

How do I get the system files and boot.ini back in here? Can I copy them and maybe make a new boot.ini and place them in this folder?

It's been a while since I used a windows system with boot.ini, but I believe that is the only file you will need as you already have ntldr and ntdetect.com. There is a link below to the microsoft site which has an example boot.ini file which you could create and copy to the root of your xp system. Should work.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022

Merely having the files is insufficient - you need a programmatic means of locating them at boot. That is what fixboot attempts to provide. If that doesn't work, re-install seems the only option.

Betcha something did change ... and betcha you made an ever-so-slight (sic...) change to the Grub configuration. :tisk:

Start by confirming that you can still boot into Linux. Then, v-e-r-r-y carefully, examine the actual configuration that you are presenting to Windows when it loads. Grub must put NTLDR in-charge of the system in exactly the right way.

maybe, but I really don't remember. I'll tell what was the last thing I did - I was in my Linux and copied config files of Opera browser from my CD into the WinXP folder (under "documents and settings\my user\application data\opera") just before that I had booted up perfectly well into my WinXP. Then as from the following day it hasn't worked. Surely putting something into documents and sett....... shouldn't make WinXP boot proceedure go bonkers? But one thing is for sure; I have NOT reinstalled/modified grub or MBR before WinXP went corrupt.

Yes, Linux works fine - I'm in it right now. I'm not quite sure what you mean here. When I boot up my PC, it just comes up with the GRUB screen asking me to choose between Linux Mint, Linux Mint (something like) recovery mode, Memtest and WinXP, so I select WinXP and the next thing I see is the NTLDR message :banghead:

Thanks.
I tried this, but still get the NTLDR not found error.

I wonder if this can be of any help: When I get the grub screen to chose which OS I want to load, I have the option to press 'e' to edit the commands before loading or 'c' for command prompt, so I selected the Windows XP option and pressed 'e'. Here's what came up:Now, when I do to Disk Utility in Linux Mint, I can select the WinXP partition and it states this to be yet, the grub code above says would it help if I changed the /dev/sda3 in the grub to /dev/sda5

Another thing I see in the Disk Utility is an option of "Check Filesystem". Could I repair the WinXP bootup issue from this?

While you are booted in to Linux Mint, open a terminal and run: sudo fdisk -l (Lower case Letter L in the command not a number one)

Check to see if either/both sda3 and sda5 show the filesystem as ntfs, windows.

Also from the terminal, run blkid, don't know if you need sudo, then compare it to the number after set=root above. Doubt if this is the problem but...? I've not used xp but, from what I've read about it, you need at least the boot files on a primary partition which sda5 is not.

I doubt you could repair the xp filesystem from the Mint Disk Utility, don't really know.