Help with grub
I recently installed Ubuntu 5.04 i386 on my (only working) desktop computer in the hopes of learning a thing or two about linux, whilst I planned to use dualboot with my Windows XP partition.
The Problem: In Windows (before installing ubuntu), my windows installation was located on D:\. Not C:\ as it's usually installed on, but I wanted to keep it that way due to the fact that D:\ was my SATA disc. So I formatted C:\ and E:\ (which was located on the same ATA disc) and installed ubuntu without too much problems. But after 24 hours or so when I wanted to go back to windows, I found that grub couldn't locate my windows installation. This might be because the boot.ini was located on C:\ (I admit it was kinda stupid to install ubuntu without hesitation and without looking one or two things up) So I do a little trial-and-error in grub, and find that the NTFS partition which I successfully mount in ubuntu (with windows on it) (/dev/sda1) can't be found in grub. I try to edit the line which specifies the harddrive selection and press tab (to find whatever partitions are available), but can only find the hd0, hd1 and fd0 partitions. Also, during the load of linux, I can't mount the sd1 drive as it's supposed to. Is this due to the SATA drivers only being loaded during the boot of X? If so, how would I go about to fix it? I've tried googling, but I dont find anything useful, and I simply dont have time to google all day to find the right answer, so I'm turning to you. What on earth should I do? Thanks in advance. |
Grub and linux number the partitions differently, grub usually is 1 less that linux. Grub's hd0 is very likely /dev/sda1, and hd1 is /dev/sda2 or /dev/sdb depending on how you have the partitions set. If you post your /boot/grub/menu.lst file, we can probably help you to find the right syntax to boot into XP, unless the boot.ini file is gone as you have said.
Peace, JimBass |
Thank you for your quick reply.
Here's the menu.lst as you asked. The last entry is an attempt from my side to add Windows XP to grub. Code:
root@niffe:/boot/grub # cat boot/grub/menu.lst Does that ruin all chances of retrieval? |
did windows boot after formatting C:\ and before installing ubuntu?
|
From what you've said, XP resides on a seperate SATA disk (D:\) and you also had C: and E: on you're master disk, which is where Linux is now installed.
That would make Windows location (hd1,0) and the grub.conf file to read: Code:
title Microsoft Windows Code:
[boot loader] |
Quote:
Quote:
Anyways. Thanks to your help I think I've located the problem, to which I have no answer as how to solve; there is no boot.ini on the windows system disc. How do I create it? (note that the windows system disc is NTFS) |
use ur windows cd
fix the mbr using windows cd
booting to repair mode with xp cd, apply command fixmbr now when u reboot u can c the windows grub tehn boot to linux if u have boot disks.. good or by a live cd or the same disk u used to install chroot if needed tehn #grubinstall /dev/hda %reinstall grub to mbr this will install grub to mbr edit the grub.conf or menu.lst if needed |
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