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Problems dual booting Windows XP and Suse 9.3
Due to problems with my hard disk I have had to purchase a new hard disk and am in the process of reinstalling both operating systems. previously I had XP and Suse 9.3 running with no problems on a Western Digital 120Gb disk. The new disk is a Seagate barracuda 200GB but due to problems with the Bios it is only seen as a 137Gb disk
I reinstalled XP and having got that running satisfactorily, I then used Partition Magic to create linux partitions and installed Suse 9.3 with no problems. However the system now refuses to reboot Windows XP. It loads the initial Windows XP screen then goes to a screen saying AUTOCHK not able to run skipping then the system shuts down with an error message. Suse 9.3 still boots with no problems. Can anyone offer any advice/ solutions. There is a post on the Suse support site http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/..._booting91.html which seems to talk about similar problems although it says it only relates to Suse 9.1. Can anyone advise if the same problem persists in later versions. Thanks in anticipation Fletch |
The link you mention is indeed only valid for 9.1. However, I think that it is worth to try different BIOS modes (LBA!) for your HDD. Additionally, I would prefer the SUSE partitioner over Partition Magic. Since you seem to have two fresh installations on your HDD, why don't you install XP on only part of the HDD and let SUSE have some fun with the rest (empty space prefered)?
We have a similar thread right now with a slightly different error message. I recommended to run a system repair from the Windows boot CD. It didn't work, but maybe it helps in your case. |
Thanks for the reply.
I will look at the BIOS and try running system repair. I am not sure I understand though what you meant by installing xp on only part of the HDD and using the rest for Suse, isn't that what I did? I actually have three partitions The main XP Partition which is NTFS, then a OSSWAP partition where I store data I use in both like music and photos, then the Suse partitions (actually that makes four as there are two Linux swap and root) Are you suggesting I should repair/ reinsatll XP then delete the Linux partitions and reinstal using the Suse installer? Thanks for your help Fletch |
As an aside, XP will only see 137g of a HD unless you have SP2 installed and maybe a BIOs upgrade - depending on the MB and BIOs.
I'd redo everything so that I had all of the HD space available and let SuSE repartition and shrink XP during its install. |
I have tried changing the Bios settings to LBA for the HDD but it still behaves the same. I have also run CHKDSK from the windows boot cd but this has had no effect. What other repairs can I try. I am assuming if I repair the MBR then I will then be unable to boot into Linux although I should be able to boot from the installation cd ? I was hoping to avoid reinstalling everything if I could but this is starting to sound unlikely.
My thought was to try and repair windows xp to get it to boot again and then repair the existing suse 9.3 instillation to reinstall GRUB Couchmaster Thanks for the info regarding the size of HDD that the system sees. I did install SP2 however I think the motherboard needs a bios upgrade and I had decided it probably wasn't worth doing. |
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Success I hope many thanks
I tried to repir the Windows XP istalation and it said it couldn't repair it because it was an inactive partition. So I eventuallly figured out how to make the partition active using Partition Magic which allowed windows to boot although I messed up Grub with my attempts to repair the MBR. I have repaired the Suse 9.3 system and hopefully both are now booting happily Thanks again for the help Fletch |
Windows installs and MBR fixes always assume Windows only. SuSE will install Grub and play nicely with Windows boots from Grub.
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