Hello everyone,

I'm having issues with my drives and I'm getting really frustrated. I've read a lot of posts but couldn't find anything resembling my problem. So, here it is:

I have Windows XP Pro on a Maxtor 300gb; first drive, first partition, partition active, working perfectly good.

I installed Mandriva on a second drive, a WD 250gb, separatly (my first drive wasn't powered); grub installed in first partition; working good when alone.

Then, I installed both drives (WIN XP master and Mandriva slave), installed System Commander and I could only boot Windows. I got the message from Sys Commander that my linux boot sector couldn't be found. Also tried Win XP boot loader. Same result.

I've decided to install Grub on hda (Win XP). Now, my Linux is booting fine but... you guess... No windows. I've read someone speaking about chainloader in the mbr. I'm not sure if that's my solution but please, feel free to enlight me. Here's a thing that I'm sure though: both drives are ok since I've diagnose them.

Here's the error I get when trying to boot Windows: Filesystem unknown partition type 0x7

Here's my grub lines:

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
default 3

title Mandriva Limited Edition 2005
kernel (hd1,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb7 acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 splash=silent PROFILE=default vga=791
initrd (hd1,0)/initrd.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd1,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb7 splash=silent acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5
initrd (hd1,0)/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd1,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb7 failsafe splash=silent acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 devfs=nomount
initrd (hd1,0)/initrd.img

title Windows XP Professionnal
root (hd0,0)
map (0x81) (0x80)
map (0x80) (0x81)
makeactive
chainloader +1

In one or the other OSes, I can see the other partitions on the other drive, so they're recognized. It's definitly a boot issue. But is it the boot loader of an mbr thing. I'm a little scared of losing precious data...

Have anyone of you seen this before ?

Thank you for your time.

Look at the XP section. With the map lines, you are telling grub that xp is on the second drive, not the first. Those lines are only required when windoze is on the second drive, as the second OS installed. Since xp was installed first, on the first drive, the map line are not required. Remove them. You only need the makeactive and chainloader lines.

Now let me qualify my response. Search these boards for 'xp dual boot grub'. This problem comes up every few days, and has answered many times.

Thanks a million my friend, it worked. If I knew it was something with the map line, I would have inclued it in my search string. There is, indeed, too many posts about dual boot.