Dear Guys,

I have debian 3.1 which, with all your help I have configured and it works fine. I have now taken anothe step and wish to run the dreaded Windows xp on another hard drive. I configured grub but the entry I've made in menu.lst doesn't seem to do the job.

Here's what I did.

I have two hard drives, one with ebian linux and one empty. I unplugged the Linux drive and on the empty one I installed windows xp. Windows boots up fine no problems there.

I then connected the Debian drive back in, and when the machine started it booted windows, so I entered the bios and set things there so that it would boot 1st from the Debian disk. That worked fine, so my sytem now boots the Debian installation. I modified Menu .lst as shown below, but got these messages:

root (hd0,0)
filesystem type is extfs partition type 0x83
makeactive
chainloader + 1
error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format press any key to continue

I've copied in the menu.lst file below. Again many thanks for your help on this.



# menu.lst - See: grub(8), info grub, update-grub(8)
# grub-install(8), grub-floppy(8),
# grub-md5-crypt, /usr/share/doc/grub
# and /usr/share/doc/grub-doc/.

## default num
# Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and
# the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.
#
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.
default 0

## timeout sec
# Set a timeout, in SEC seconds, before automatically booting the default entry
# (normally the first entry defined).
timeout 5

# Pretty colours
color cyan/blue white/blue

## password ['--md5'] passwd
# If used in the first section of a menu file, disable all interactive editing
# control (menu entry editor and command-line) and entries protected by the
# command 'lock'
# e.g. password topsecret
# password --md5 $1$gLhU0/$aW78kHK1QfV3P2b2znUoe/
# password topsecret

#
# examples
#
# title Windows 95/98/NT/2000
# root (hd0,0)
# makeactive
# chainloader +1
#
# title Linux
# root (hd0,1)
# kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro
#

#
# Put static boot stanzas before and/or after AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST

### BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
## lines between the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST markers will be modified
## by the debian update-grub script except for the default options below

## DO NOT UNCOMMENT THEM, Just edit them to your needs

## ## Start Default Options ##
## default kernel options
## default kernel options for automagic boot options
## If you want special options for specifiv kernels use kopt_x_y_z
## where x.y.z is kernel version. Minor versions can be omitted.
## e.g. kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro
# kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro

## default grub root device
## e.g. groot=(hd0,0)
# groot=(hd0,0)

## should update-grub create alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. alternative=true
## alternative=false
# alternative=true

## should update-grub lock alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. lockalternative=true
## lockalternative=false
# lockalternative=false

## altoption boot targets option
## multiple altoptions lines are allowed
## e.g. altoptions=(extra menu suffix) extra boot options
## altoptions=(recovery mode) single
# altoptions=(recovery mode) single

## controls how many kernels should be put into the menu.lst
## only counts the first occurence of a kernel, not the
## alternative kernel options
## e.g. howmany=all
## howmany=7
# howmany=all

## should update-grub create memtest86 boot option
## e.g. memtest86=true
## memtest86=false
# memtest86=true

## ## End Default Options ##

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-2-k7
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-2-k7 root=/dev/hda1 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-2-k7
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-2-k7 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-2-k7 root=/dev/hda1 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-2-k7
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.27-2-386
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.27-2-386 root=/dev/hda1 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-2-386
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.27-2-386 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.27-2-386 root=/dev/hda1 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-2-386
savedefault
boot

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# my widows xp entry follows now
#
title Windows xp
root (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

# end of my windows 98 stanza
#

I'm not all that sure but I know that my WindowsXP GRUB entry would look like this:

title WindowsXP
rootnoverify(hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader+1

notice that the only two differences between mine and yours are the "rootnoverify", which I personally think you should try, and the "boot" option. The "boot" option doesn't make a difference I believe, but you may want to try my version of this if you can. Post back with feedback!