I'm having a very difficult time trying to get this to work. Here's my setup:

hda1: *hidden* Dell utilities, things I havn't touched but were on the computer when we bought it
hda2: Windows XP's C:\
hda3-6: Unimportant, other partitions for XP
hde: The hard drive I'm booting off of (MBR from the hard drive)

I'm using hde's MBR just in case something happens to the hard drive, so then I can just go back to my BIOS, switch the hard drive to boot off of back to hda, and then get back into XP without having to mess with the Recovery mode and passwords.

Now here's the commands I've tried doing to boot WIndows XP with GRUB

for the rootnoverify, I've tried (hd0,0) (hd0,1) (hd0,2) (hd1,1) (hd1,2)

If anyone has any suggestions, please help me out. I'm trying to use Grub because if I ever re-run LILO, I have to run it with my 2.4.22 kernel if I want to be able to boot into Windows, because 2.6.6 gives me trouble with that for some odd reason. Plus, if my memory serves me correctly, when I had RH7.3 on another computer, I could use the mouse with Grub. Maybe my memory's shot, who knows. All I know is that there has to be SOME way to boot XP with Grub, allbeit it's annoying to figure out how....

Oh, here's the error I keep on getting when I try to use the menu instead of command prompt:

Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format

I'm not following at all why you can't use lilo? In my opinion (which I may be flamed for by some GRUB loyalists) lilo is much simpler to configure.

Also, lilo is an independant thing from your kernel, it really shouldn't matter what kernel you're running as to whether or not Lilo can boot windowsXP or linux...

--Shade

Before I go on, I have to say, that I am no expert on this subject, so don't blame me, please, if anything goes bust.

It's definitely possible to boot MS WIn XP using LILO and GRUB. Some general notes, first.
- I think MBR bootloaders work from one of the first two hard discs in a system, not just arbitrary ones.
- In order to boot a Windows system, you have to set the "bootable" flag with fdisk for that partition.
- The counting of partitions in GRUB can be a bit confusing, especially if you have an extended partition. The first logical partition within an extended partition on the first IDE hard disc will always be (hd0,4), which may resolve to /dev/hda5 on a system with three primary partitions or to /dev/hda2 if you only have logical partitions within a big extended one (unlikely on a Windows system).

LILO is the default on Slackware.
On Slackware you can run liloconf to install and configure it. You can choose to put it the bootloader into the MBR of the first hard disc (as far as I know, this is important: it has to be the first or second disc in your system, not an arbitrary one!) or into the /root partition of your Slackware system. Note that you need a section type "image" for Linux systems and "other" for Windows et al.

It is possible that I haven't fully understood your problem, but maybe it is of help to you if I just describe how I configured my multiboot system (three Linuces on one disc).

I use GRUB, but have LILO boot Slackware. That's what the chainloader option of GRUB does. GRUB is in the MBR of my harddisc, LILO is on the Slackware /root partition. Here's my /boot/grub/menu.lst:

<snip>
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Mon May 31 22:39:08 2004

color white/blue black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,4)/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title SuSE
kernel (hd0,4)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 vga=0x317 splash=silent desktop resume=/dev/hda2 showopts
initrd (hd0,4)/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Slackware###
title Slackware
chainloader (hd0,8)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: ROCK###
title ROCK
kernel (hd0,10)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda12 vga=0x317
initrd (hd0,10/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
title Diskette
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe
kernel (hd0,4)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off vga=normal noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 3
initrd (hd0,4)/initrd
</snip>

I sincerely hope that this does not confuse you even more...

Good luck!


gargamel

Try :
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

Normally that should work