I installed Ubuntu 10.04 using the defaults over a fairly clean XP SP3 windows. It's a 500gb sata drive & I think Ubuntu set it's partitions more or less using the second half of the drive.

Grub defaults to the Ubuntu and seems to run fine in partitions mounted within /dev/sda2 247 gb.

When I select xp, grub claims it is going to boot XP at /dev/sda1
which when I look at it with the Ubuntu file utility it is a HPFS/NTFS bootable 253gb partition.

XP was working fine before the Ubuntu install, now after using grub to select XP all I get is a blinking cursor.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

How did you create free space for your Linux?

If you did with cfdisk, you're in for a surpise: all of your Windows data are down the drain...

If, on the other hand, you used the Vista internal disk repartitioner, it would be alright. But then you would not have 2 parts of 250 GB (it would be 300 for Win, 200 for Lin) so this option is ruled out.
If you used Paragon Disk repartitioner it would be OK.

So the 10 billion dollar question is : How did you repartition? Or have you always been running with 50% of your total disk capacity?

Started with a single NTFS partition.

Ubuntu created the partition on it's own. Not sure how it did it.

I used Hiren's to inspect the first partition and everything appears to be ok. I'm going to try easyBCD and see what that can do.

Maybe you could also show your /boot/grub/menu.lst or /boot/grub/grub.cfg as maybe the config was somehow written incorrectly

I have had something like this happen twice where I could not boot into Windows after installing with a fresh repartitioning. I do not recall the bit about the blinking cursor, but I did get the beginning of the windows boot and then a failure. I think I had an error message that some boot file was not found; so this could be completely different.

In my case it was a problem that happens infrequently where the repartitioner takes the information that the kernel gives it about the disk geometry and somehow writes it to the BIOS. Then when you reboot to Windows, the boot files are not found, because it still is operating with the original geometry information. In my case, the fix was to use my Windows install disk and run fixboot and fixmbr. I'm pretty sure that fixboot is what really fixes it, but I ran both. Well, actually on the second time it happened I reinstalled Windows, because it was a new machine.

The problem with doing this is that the mbr will be wiped and the grub that was installed with Linux will be gone. So you will then have to use the Linux install disk to run repair and reinstall grub, or just reinstall Linux since it is new anyway.

This problem, if that is what happened, will not happen on the second install of Linux, because the geometry information will stay the same. Even if your problem is not exactly the same, fixing the mbr might allow Windows to boot.

Fixboot and fixmbr

I went back to square 1 I have a clean win XP sp3 on a 244 gb NTFS partition.

I think I am going to install easyBCD and try UBUNTU without the automatic install and skip grub

Ubuntu automatically installs grub. You can install Ubuntu alternative version which allows you to choose where you want grub installed. If you put it on /dev/sda2 rather than on the mbr, then you can use another bootloader to boot it.

I'm curious: Did you try fixboot and fixmbr first? Also, did you repartition again, because originally you gave a slightly different size for your Windows partition?

I tried fixboot and fixmbr. Then I used ?? from HIRAM's to format & partition the drive. Installed xp. That's where it is now {working on|thinking about} the best way to install linux on the other partition.

Remember, when shrinking windows do the following and you should be fine.
1. Defrag windows 2 or 3 times.
2. Always use windows to shrink windows. Or you might have a loss of data and or corrupted windows.
3. Use any partition editor including ubuntu disk to format unallocated part of the disk.

If you want to install unbuntu, always do a manual install. As I recall the automatic install will rewrite the entire disk. The manual install will give you the option to install ubuntu in the unallocated portion of the disk.

Once everything is installed, boot ubuntu, open a termian and type "sudo fdisk -l" (without the quotes). You will see how your disk has been partitioned. It should look something like this:

Honestly this just sounds like a freak situation because I have used the Ubuntu system to shrink my Windows partition and it has always worked for me. The only thing that I would suggest is using the Windows CD and running the fix help it will give you.

Justin

I reformatted, and installed XP again

I have easyBCD installed and plan to use it as a bootloader.

I am pretty sure I have a good installation of UBUNTU

here is the disk setup now:
Not exactly sure how to install either lilo or grub somewhere where it won't mess up the mbr. I think it needs to go somewhere like /dev/sda5