I sincerely hope that someone can help me with the following dual boot problem.

I have installed Ubuntu 8.04 on a separate partition (formatted as a Linux partition with a separate swap partition by Partition Magic 8.0 under Windows). Ubuntu works flawlessly, but when I try to select Windows at the start up menu I get a two tone blue screen with a series of error messages (which disappear too fast to read) and then the system boots back automatically into the opening operating system choice menu again. So I am back where I started.

Having rooted around the site for similar dual boot problems, several folks have asked to see the contents of the file menu.lst below and also grub.conf, which I can't find.

Any help to get this set up properly would be gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks in anticipation

David


/boot/grub/menu.lst

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-21-generic

root (hd0,1)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-21-generic root=UUID=e8e3a797-252e-4490-b39d-7f377bf2484c ro quiet splash

initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-21-generic

quiet



title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-21-generic (recovery mode)

root (hd0,1)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-21-generic root=UUID=e8e3a797-252e-4490-b39d-7f377bf2484c ro single

initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-21-generic



title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic

root (hd0,1)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=e8e3a797-252e-4490-b39d-7f377bf2484c ro quiet splash

initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic

quiet



title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic (recovery mode)

root (hd0,1)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=e8e3a797-252e-4490-b39d-7f377bf2484c ro single

initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic



title Ubuntu 8.04.1, memtest86+

root (hd0,1)

kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin

quiet



### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST



# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian

# ones.

title Other operating systems:

root





# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS

# on /dev/sda1

title Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

root (hd0,0)

savedefault

makeactive

chainloader +1

Menu.lst and grub.conf are the same file so you don't need to look for grub.conf. Your entry for xp shows root (hd0,0), generally this should be rootnoverify (hd0,0). That's assuming xp is on the first partition of the first drive. Don't think this is the problem though based on what you say happens as you will usually get an error message from Grub. Have you tried hitting the 'Pause' key to see what these error messages are?

Let's see the output of this, run from a terminal

All I did was to resize my current partition and install onto the unused partition that was now available.

ALL of this is available during the install, including resizing of the partition.....CAREFULLY read the dialogs during the install, you will have the opportunity to reduce the current partition as well as install it in the unused space.

Also, let Ubuntu set up the partitions....Every thread that I have read where difficulties were happening with partitioning is because of someone trying to create the partitions themselves.

Thank you for your quick responses

Here is the output of entering sudo fdisk -l
in a terminal window as suggested:

Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2b915dcc

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 17895 143741556 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 17963 24321 51078667+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 17896 17962 538177+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order


Any suggestions very welcome.

Regards,
David

O.K., this is Partition Magic screwing things again - trying to be "helpful" no doubt. In the Microsoft way of doing things. Windoze won't boot a hidden partition - and there's no need to have it hidden. In future let the installers manage the partitions - NTFS included. From a Linux terminal you need to change the type of that NTFS partitionSee how useful [code] tags are ???. Please use them in future.

Very many thanks for your help with the fdisk solution. It has worked a treat and has saved me a huge amount of time.
I also now realise what code tags are...
Thanks again
David