hello out there:

here is my problem: I have mdk 10.0 on removable hard drive (hdd), windows xp pro on fixed hard drive (hda), grub boots on hda without problems if the two disks are present. But if I remove hdd to work with other data, there is a grub problem "error 25" and no way to reboot xp!

I tried reconfiguring grub to boot on hdd, but that only led to another mesage "unable to read, etc..." which seems to mean that from linux, i could not rewrite the boot section of windows xp...

So what is the manip to be able to dual boot when i have the two original hd's, and directboot to xp when i remove the linux disk...

thanks for your help

(i'm a firtimer on the forum, but i've been using linux on and off for years as an eternal tryouter...)

martin broomberg

Hello, and welcome to LQ!

Grub loads stuff from the hard drive that has Linux on it before it can boot anything. If that hard drive isn't plugged in, you can't use grub.

Have you tried using the Windows boot loader to load Linux? I'm sure there's info for it on the web. You'll have to go to a recovery console first and do, "fixmbr" (or something like that).

If that doesn't work (or you just don't like the idea) you can use the Lilo boot loader instead. Lilo loads completely into the MBR and doesn't need a Linux partition in order to boot Windows.

There are probably also options for this in GRUB, but if so I don't know them.

Does anybody else have an idea?

--Dane

Sorry I took so long to reply and thank you...

I tried lilo but that just gave me a series of 00000 on the bootscreen, so:...I did a fixmbr, and now I am waiting to have some time to try a dualboot fixup through windows...


until sometime later, perhaps,....

thanks again for your (unique) reply,

martin

Note

I (almost) always jumper my fixed drives as slaves, i.e. hdb. Many in the local LUG consider this idiosyncrasy a little strange; but it allows me to boot a removable hd easily w/o messing w/ it, the BIOS, or my GRUB menu.


Suggestion 1

1. Using Win fdisk, restore the Win MBR boot loader on your fixed drive:
   Code:

    fdisk /mbr

   You will probably need a Win98 boot disk or similar.
   
   
2. Open the case and:
   1. Put the rack for the removable drive on the primary IDE.
   2. Re-jumper your fixed (XP) drive to slave.
   From now on, always jumper the removable drive "Master".
   If you use SATA or cable select, do the appropriate equivalents. The result you want is:
   • hda == removable (Linux)
   • hdb == fixed (XP)
   
   
3. Put GRUB on the MBR of the removable, Linux drive (hda).
   Do this by re-installing Mdk, if necessary.
   
   
4. Leave the BIOS alone.

Suggestion 2

1. Again, using Win fdisk, restore the Win MBR boot loader on your fixed drive:
   Code:

    fdisk /mbr

   You will probably need a Win98 boot disk or similar.
   
   
2. Point your BIOS at the removable drive. (I.E. make it the one that boots 1st.)
   Check that the fixed drive (XP) boots when the removable drive is not in the system. I don't remember a BIOS that doesn't do this.
   
   
3. Put GRUB on the MBR of the removable, Linux drive (hdd).
   If necessary, do this by re-installing Mdk.
   
   
4. Check that GRUB boots both systems correctly, you may have to add "map" lines to menu.lst or a /boot/grub/device.map file

Comments

In both instances, your Win XP will once again be in close to its original state. It will also be independent of any Linux drive you choose to put in the machine.

The trade off is: would you rather mess w/ your hardware or w/ GRUB mapping?