I've just recently installed Ubuntu and have been pretty impressed so far except I'm having problems getting Grub to boot Windows. When I select Windows from the Grub menu I get "selected disk does not exist", but it does!


This is the output from fdisk, Windows in on hdc1:

Disk /dev/hda: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4998 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1530 12289693+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 1531 1625 763087+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda3 1626 4998 27093622+ b W95 FAT32

Disk /dev/hdc: 13.0 GB, 13022324736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1583 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 * 1 1582 12707383+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)


Entry from menu.lst:

title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
rootnoverify (hd2,0)
map (hd0,0) (hd2,0)
map (hd2,0) (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1


I think the problem may have something to do with my device.map file which appears to be incorrect:

(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdc


I've tried changing hd1 to hd2 and rebooting but that doesn't make any difference.

Anyone know how to fix this?

You only have two hard drives - grub dosn't care what they are or where linux says they are, it just counts them. So hd1=hdc is correct. You need to change it in the menue.lst file:

title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0,0) (hd1,0)
map (hd1,0) (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1


Did you, perhaps, take the existing windows drive and move it to the second ide controller? You realize that windows likes to be in the primary master role?

Thanks Simon, I changed menu.lst like you said and I got the following:

"Remove disks or other media
Press any key to restart
GRUB loading stage1.5.

GRUB loading, please wait...
Error 17"

Then the computer hangs.

Windows is on IDE2 and I know it likes to be on the primary IDE controller, but I thought that was what the map commands were for.

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/
GRUB Error 17 : Cannot mount selected partition
This error is returned if the partition requested exists, but the filesystem type cannot be recognized by GRUB.

... so there is progress. I just saw something I missed out:

title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0,0) (hd1,0)
map (hd1,0) (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader (hd1,0)+1

... sorry about that.