Dual booting WinXP and SUSE 10.0, can't boot Windows

gandaliter · 04-03-2006, 05:39 AM

I was running WinXP on 150GB of my 250GB HD and then installed SUSE 10.0 on the rest, I configured Grub to boot Windows as well but when I tried to boot it Windows said 'Autochk program not found, skipping Autocheck.' and then rebooted. I put a copy of the Windows boot loader onto a floppy but it had the same problem, so I think it must be Windows rather than Grub.

I can access the Windows partition from Linux and the Autochk.exe program is there. I thought that the partition might be disabled or hidden but I could access it from Linux, and I'm not sure how to change that anyway. Any ideas?

Thanks for your help!

gandaliter

syg00 · 04-03-2006, 05:57 AM

boot.ini pointing to the wrong partition I would think.
Maybe the Suse install re-ordered the partitions. Do a search on the message - I woukd expect you to find others have suffered likwise.

pixellany · 04-03-2006, 06:22 AM

It seems that you are getting into Windows if it is looking for an *.exe file. Can you boot up with the Windows CD and get into recovery mode?

Also--from Linux--post the output of "fdisk -l" (run as root)

Not sure about boot.ini pointing to the wrong partition--but you can check that. Here is one link:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=289022

To see boot.ini from Linux, mount your XP partition to---eg---/mnt/XP and do "cat boot.ini"

gandaliter · 04-03-2006, 06:26 AM

I have checked other posts but none of them seem to apply, this might just be me not recognizing it as the same problem but still. This is /root/boot.ini, I have a slightly strange setup in that hda is the CD drive, hdc is the hard drive and it is split up into 6 partitions, 1. is Windows, 5. and 6. are both used for linux, boot.ini looks correct, is there something wrong with it?

Code:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
Default= multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows="Windows XP"

I am not sure if this is the right file, this is /boot/grub/menu.lst:

Code:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Mon Apr  3 02:05:18 BST 2006

color white/blue black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title SUSE LINUX 10.0
    root (hd0,5)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc6 vga=0x31a selinux=0    resume=/dev/hdc5  splash=silent showopts
    initrd /boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
title Floppy
    chainloader (fd0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- SUSE LINUX 10.0
    root (hd0,5)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc6 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume selinux=0 nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off 3
    initrd /boot/initrd


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

gandaliter · 04-03-2006, 06:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pixellany

It seems that you are getting into Windows if it is looking for an *.exe file. Can you boot up with the Windows CD and get into recovery mode?

Also--from Linux--post the output of "fdisk -l" (run as root)

Not sure about boot.ini pointing to the wrong partition--but you can check that. Here is one link:
'I am not allowed to post links yet!'

To see boot.ini from Linux, mount your XP partition to---eg---/mnt/XP and do "cat boot.ini"

I can get into recovery mode, I am just not sure what needs to be done there. fdisk -l returns:

Code:

Disk /dev/hdc: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdc1   *           1       16708   134206978+  44  Unknown
/dev/hdc2           16709       30515   110904727+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdc5           16709       16839     1052226   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hdc6           16840       30515   109852438+  83  Linux

This is boot.ini in the windows partition:

Code:

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

syg00 · 04-03-2006, 08:17 AM

I guessed wrong - the partition type on hdc1 is wrong. Suse 10 seems to be a PoS - parted (or whatever Suse uses) maybe broken.
If hdc1 is supposed to be NTFS, change the type to '7'.

pixellany · 04-03-2006, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

I guessed wrong - the partition type on hdc1 is wrong. Suse 10 seems to be a PoS - parted (or whatever Suse uses) maybe broken.
If hdc1 is supposed to be NTFS, change the type to '7'.

Bingo!!
Hopefully, all that happened is the partition type got changed when you installed SUSE.....

gandaliter · 04-03-2006, 08:33 AM

Sorry, I'm still a newbie to Linux really, what exactly am I meant to change? Do you mean part of the boot.ini file, if so which bit?