Can't boot XP with Grub

anon078 · 02-04-2009, 09:27 AM

fixboot cannot find the system drive, or the drive specified is not valid

CJS · 02-04-2009, 09:47 AM

Were you able to login to the recovery console OK? And then you got that error after running the fixboot command? If so, how about first doing:

Code:

map

And that should show the drive letters of all your partitions. Choose the first NTFS partition (most likely it will be "C") and do:

Code:

fixboot C:

And what does that return?

anon078 · 02-04-2009, 10:24 PM

now when i try to boot i get a "NTLDR is missing" prompt

syg00 · 02-04-2009, 11:00 PM

CJS seems to be on top of things, but in the past I've found that message comes from the boot sector record on the Windows partition. After a (normal) fixboot, I have presumed this to mean more sectors were trampled on than fixboot fixes. When I have had this I have had to resort to a re-install of Windoze to rectify things.
Hopefully others will have a better solution.

anon078 · 02-05-2009, 12:30 AM

i hope so too=[ i didnt now backup any of my data yet since that computer is a secondary and if a reformat is necessary ill have to go get a usb harddrive reader to transfer my files=/

CJS · 02-05-2009, 06:51 AM

Shadows72, how about next posting:

Code:

hexdump -s 128 -n 2 -e '"%x\n"' /dev/sda1
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt && ls -l /mnt

Also, please make sure you are using the following entry to boot Windows:

Code:

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

And we can work from there.

anon078 · 02-05-2009, 10:17 PM

thanks for all the help again, i assume the prompts are for fedora? now i cant even boot fedora. i tried to boot fedora using super grub disk and i get "Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS"

CJS · 02-06-2009, 08:22 AM

Did you do any kind of software updating in Fedora prior to the booting problem, especially a kernel upgrade? Or did you make any changes to Grub other than the menu.lst? If not, to get a Grub error 18 out-of-the-blue could mean you have hardware issues at this point. I would go to the manufacturer's website for your HDD and download their diagnostic tools to run on your HDD, and see if your HDD is OK. It would also be good to run "memtest86+" to check your RAM; I don't know about Fedora, but the Ubuntu Live CD comes with memtest86+ as an option, and there are many other CDs that have it too.

anon078 · 02-06-2009, 11:08 PM

i think i have does a kernel upgrade before the booting problems. when i edit grub i edit grub.conf. i will look for the HDD diagnostics tonight

CJS · 02-07-2009, 07:42 AM

How about running the Boot Info Script again and posting its output, because that will give us a better idea if the issue might be with your new kernel upgrade.

anon078 · 02-07-2009, 05:04 PM

how do i do that without linux? can i run it using the fedora repair ?

CJS · 02-07-2009, 05:14 PM

You can run the Boot Info Script from any Live CD you might have, you don't have to run it from an installed distro.

anon078 · 02-08-2009, 03:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CJS

How about running the Boot Info Script again and posting its output, because that will give us a better idea if the issue might be with your new kernel upgrade.

here are the results

============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================

=> No known boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda

sda1: _________________________________________________________________________

File system:
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

sda2: _________________________________________________________________________

File system:
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

sda4: _________________________________________________________________________

File system:
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive sda: _____________________________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders, total 390721968 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x69737369

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sda1 ? 1,869,771,365 2,038,460,886 168,689,522 69 Unknown
/dev/sda2 ? 1,701,519,481 3,571,400,945 1,869,881,465 73 Unknown
/dev/sda4 0 3,435,113,471 3,435,113,472 0 Empty

/dev/sda1 ends after the last sector of /dev/sda
/dev/sda1 overlaps with /dev/sda2
/dev/sda1 overlaps with /dev/sda4
/dev/sda2 ends after the last sector of /dev/sda
/dev/sda2 overlaps with /dev/sda4
/dev/sda4 ends after the last sector of /dev/sda

blkid -c /dev/null: ____________________________________________________________

/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop2: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop3: LABEL="F10-i686-Live" UUID="51e0bdfc-1a89-45e0-b993-9953dc69e6b8" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/dm-0: LABEL="F10-i686-Live" UUID="51e0bdfc-1a89-45e0-b993-9953dc69e6b8" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda: SEC_TYPE="msdos" UUID="0000-0000" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/dm-1: LABEL="F10-i686-Live" UUID="51e0bdfc-1a89-45e0-b993-9953dc69e6b8" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

=============================== "mount" output: ===============================

/dev/mapper/live-rw on / type ext3 (rw,noatime)
/proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
/dev/sr0 on /mnt/live type iso9660 (ro)
varcacheyum on /var/cache/yum type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
/tmp on /tmp type tmpfs (rw)
vartmp on /var/tmp type tmpfs (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/liveuser/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=liveuser)
/dev/sr1 on /media/FROGGER2 type iso9660 (ro,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=500)
/dev/sda on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=lower,uid=500)

=========================== Unknown MBRs/Boot Sectors/etc =======================

Unknown MBR on /dev/sda

00000000 eb 3c 90 4d 53 44 4f 53 35 2e 30 00 02 08 01 00 |.<.MSDOS5.0.....|
00000010 02 00 02 03 51 f8 08 00 11 00 04 00 01 00 00 00 |....Q...........|
00000020 00 00 00 00 80 00 29 00 00 00 00 4e 4f 20 4e 41 |......)....NO NA|
00000030 4d 45 20 20 20 20 46 41 54 31 32 20 20 20 33 c9 |ME FAT12 3.|
00000040 8e d1 bc f0 7b 8e d9 b8 00 20 8e c0 fc bd 00 7c |....{.... .....||
00000050 38 4e 24 7d 24 8b c1 99 e8 3c 01 72 1c 83 eb 3a |8N$}$....<.r...:|
00000060 66 a1 1c 7c 26 66 3b 07 26 8a 57 fc 75 06 80 ca |f..|&f;.&.W.u...|
00000070 02 88 56 02 80 c3 10 73 eb 33 c9 8a 46 10 98 f7 |..V....s.3..F...|
00000080 66 16 03 46 1c 13 56 1e 03 46 0e 13 d1 8b 76 11 |f..F..V..F....v.|
00000090 60 89 46 fc 89 56 fe b8 20 00 f7 e6 8b 5e 0b 03 |`.F..V.. ....^..|
000000a0 c3 48 f7 f3 01 46 fc 11 4e fe 61 bf 00 00 e8 e6 |.H...F..N.a.....|
000000b0 00 72 39 26 38 2d 74 17 60 b1 0b be a1 7d f3 a6 |.r9&8-t.`....}..|
000000c0 61 74 32 4e 74 09 83 c7 20 3b fb 72 e6 eb dc a0 |at2Nt... ;.r....|
000000d0 fb 7d b4 7d 8b f0 ac 98 40 74 0c 48 74 13 b4 0e |.}.}....@t.Ht...|
000000e0 bb 07 00 cd 10 eb ef a0 fd 7d eb e6 a0 fc 7d eb |.........}....}.|
000000f0 e1 cd 16 cd 19 26 8b 55 1a 52 b0 01 bb 00 00 e8 |.....&.U.R......|
00000100 3b 00 72 e8 5b 8a 56 24 be 0b 7c 8b fc c7 46 f0 |;.r.[.V$..|...F.|
00000110 3d 7d c7 46 f4 29 7d 8c d9 89 4e f2 89 4e f6 c6 |=}.F.)}...N..N..|
00000120 06 96 7d cb ea 03 00 00 20 0f b6 c8 66 8b 46 f8 |..}..... ...f.F.|
00000130 66 03 46 1c 66 8b d0 66 c1 ea 10 eb 5e 0f b6 c8 |f.F.f..f....^...|
00000140 4a 4a 8a 46 0d 32 e4 f7 e2 03 46 fc 13 56 fe eb |JJ.F.2....F..V..|
00000150 4a 52 50 06 53 6a 01 6a 10 91 8b 46 18 96 92 33 |JRP.Sj.j...F...3|
00000160 d2 f7 f6 91 f7 f6 42 87 ca f7 76 1a 8a f2 8a e8 |......B...v.....|
00000170 c0 cc 02 0a cc b8 01 02 80 7e 02 0e 75 04 b4 42 |.........~..u..B|
00000180 8b f4 8a 56 24 cd 13 61 61 72 0b 40 75 01 42 03 |...V$..aar.@u.B.|
00000190 5e 0b 49 75 06 f8 c3 41 bb 00 00 60 66 6a 00 eb |^.Iu...A...`fj..|
000001a0 b0 4e 54 4c 44 52 20 20 20 20 20 20 0d 0a 4e 54 |.NTLDR ..NT|
000001b0 4c 44 52 20 69 73 20 6d 69 73 73 69 6e 67 ff 0d |LDR is missing..|
000001c0 0a 44 69 73 6b 20 65 72 72 6f 72 ff 0d 0a 50 72 |.Disk error...Pr|
000001d0 65 73 73 20 61 6e 79 20 6b 65 79 20 74 6f 20 72 |ess any key to r|
000001e0 65 73 74 61 72 74 0d 0a 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |estart..........|
000001f0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ac bf cc 55 aa |..............U.|
00000200

Unknown BootLoader on sda1

Unknown BootLoader on sda2

Unknown BootLoader on sda4

=======Devices which don't seem to have a corresponding hard drive==============

sdb .
sdc .
sdd .
sde .

=============================== StdErr Messages: ===============================

hexdump: /dev/sda1: No such file or directory
hexdump: stdin: Bad file descriptor.
hexdump: /dev/sda1: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda1: Bad file descriptor
/home/liveuser/Desktop/boot_info_script024.sh: line 1043: [: =: unary operator expected
hexdump: /dev/sda2: No such file or directory
hexdump: stdin: Bad file descriptor.
hexdump: /dev/sda2: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda2: Bad file descriptor
/home/liveuser/Desktop/boot_info_script024.sh: line 1043: [: =: unary operator expected
hexdump: /dev/sda4: No such file or directory
hexdump: stdin: Bad file descriptor.
hexdump: /dev/sda4: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda4: Bad file descriptor
/home/liveuser/Desktop/boot_info_script024.sh: line 1043: [: =: unary operator expected

looks like fixboot has f**ed my harddrive, before fixboot i could still boot fedora. Now it look like everything it one mushed up partiton. i popped gparted into the computer and what i saw was one big 180gb partition. then i put acronis true image into the comp to try to back up some files and it found some unreadable sectors x_X is there a way to fix this? or is recovering my files out of the question

CJS · 02-08-2009, 06:14 AM

I don't think I would blame "fixboot" at this point, because it looks to me like you most likely have a hardware problem, especially if Acronis also found bad sectors. In addition, fixboot returned some strange errors previously with "fixboot cannot find the system drive, or the drive specified is not valid". I noticed the script printed out your sda drive's MBR since it couldn't identify it, and it looks like "fixboot" somehow installed XP's boot sector code ("ntldr") to the MBR rather than XP partition's boot sector. But again, I would tend to think that's a result of a hardware issue. Can you go to the manufacturers website for your HDD and download their diagnostic software to check your HDD? You could also run some of the HDD tests that come on the Ultimate Boot CD, because that CD has many of the HDD diagnostic software that manufacturer's include with their HDDs. And since you don't know what the hardware issue could be, I would also recommend running "memtest86+" just to make sure your RAM is OK; that test comes with the Ultimate Boot CD and also comes with some Live CDs (like Ubuntu for example). If you really want to try and salvage some of your files from that HDD, you could try "dd_rescue" to image that HDD to another drive, and then work on it on another computer. Depending on your hardware issue though, you might have to pull that HDD out and plug it into another computer in order to work on it. Good luck and let me know what you find.

anon078 · 02-08-2009, 12:32 PM

well in order to run the seagate diagnostics tests on the drive i removed the drive and put in into another computer in order to run the program. the drive passed both the short and the long dst tests. I'll download ultimate boot cd and run the diagnostics again to see what i find. i was running memtest86+ yesterday, when i got to 50 percent i got tired of waiting and i cancled it to run the live image, ill redo the test again today also