Hello,

I have a computer with two Hard-Drives, the first with
Windows XP and the second with Ubuntu Linux.
The boot order is:
Primary Master:Windows XP
Primary Slave: CD-ROM
Secondary Masder:Ubuntu.

The sencond Hard drive is not detected on a cold boot, only after
I press minimum 2 times CTRL-ALT-DEL.
When I turn off LBA mode on the second hard-drive the hard-disk is detected
even on a cold boot but Grub is not loading.
Please help.

Thank you.

Hi, better 1st check why your harddrive is not recognized?
Are they both set to cable select? check the Bios and the jumper settings at the drives.
Thats what I would suggest as first step.

All jumpers are set correctly.
I tried all the combinations possible and nothing.

I would suggest to attach both HDDs to the 1st IDE controller and jumper them as Master and Slave. attach the CD Drive as master on the 2nd Controller.

I did this also and it seems it works better
but I receive an error at Ubuntu boot: "error mounting root file
system". Thant's because I changed the secondary master to secondary slave I suppose.
I did't know how to fix it so I abandoned this solution.

No keep it like this! Perfect if you say it works better only the boring Grub is yelling ... so what the hack. Lets reinstall grub again.
You'll have to boot with ubuntu cd and start rescue.
then give me an output of and what is in /boot/grub/grub.conf

On the rescue console we can go to grub> and setup the löader up again.

I don't think that the grub is the problem, but Ubuntu because Grub starts,
I make the choice (Ubuntu) and when Ubuntu boots at the "mounting root file system"
I receive the error.

Here is the output you requested:

/sbin/fdisk -l

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 2550 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 2551 4997 19655527+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 2551 3825 10241406 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda6 3826 4997 9414058+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hdc: 61.4 GB, 61492838400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7476 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 3188 7475 34443360 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdc2 1 131 1052226 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hdc3 132 3187 24547320 83 Linux
/dev/hdc5 3188 5737 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdc6 5738 7475 13960453+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Oh sorry.. no ubuntu is alway the problem... joke :-)
No Grub has incorrect informations cause you changed the drives.
And now we will have to setup or install however you want to call it.
Again. The output of fdisk -l has been done before you changed physical the drive assignment.
So now we have to rework it grub on the rescue console.
GRUB>setup (hd0,0)
GRUB>root (hd2,2) thats how it is currently but this won't work after you changed the drives so it changes to (hd1,2)

Thank you for the informations. I am a Linux beginner
and I never worked with grub on the rescue console.
I don't know even how to access it.
I am afraid af making some mistakes so that my system won't start.
I will perhaps read a groob manual before making any changes.

So that's what I understand from what you said:
I change the hard-disk from secondary master to primary slave
I enter in the rescue console and I type:
setup hd0(0)

1. After you have booted to rescue enter 2. Entered grub (we're now are in a command line interface shell for GRUB).
3. Entered root (hd1,2) (setting the boot drive where most of GRUB, and the system kernel files are).
4. Entered find (hd1,2)/grub/stage1 (the first file GRUB uses to boot up from). This step may not be necessary, but I wasn't about to erase a master bootblock, and try again, just to see if it was.
5. Received a list of drives partitions where it could be installed (as far as I could tell). According to their guide, this is a list of where it finds the “stage1” file, which was clearly nonsense (as it was not on the drives listed).
6. Entered setup (hd0) (to install the bootloader to the drive my system BIOS boots up).
7. Entered quit (to properly exit from the GRUB command line interface shell).

Hello,

I made a first step.
I still didn't chage the drives, so the first is primary master and the second
is secondary master.
I booted up from my Ubuntu live CD.
I just typed
find /boot/grub/stage1
and it showed me
(hd1,2)

According to what you told me previously it should have been (hd2,2) before
and after all the changes it would transform in (hd1,2).
So I don't know if entering all the command you told me would change something.
Sorry for bothering you so much but I want to make sure it is all OK.

1st HDD is hd0 = hda
2nd HDD is hd1 = hdb
grub starts counting at 0
so for e.g. (hd3,7) = 4th hdd it's eights partition.
So (hd1,2) would be your root
In case that you want install grub to the mbr which is located on hd0
so setup is (hd0)
Alright so far?
And no sweat for bothering me... I hope that I can help anyway.
:-)

I changed the hard disk position but I made another change. I puted
the Ubuntu hard drive as master and the Windows XP as slave.
I suppose this changes the commands you gave me into :

root(hd0,2)
setup(hd0)?????

Please correct me if I am wrong.

1st) check jumpers
2nd) try to connect without the old one
3rd) set your BIOS to default
4th) did u try aby live cd (distributions) ?

aaaaaaaaaaa.... 10:40 you said that you did not change the drives physical yet...
also you said 08:17 that it works better if changed... now you changed it and mixed them arround. So now the whole setup is a little bit different.
And yes it changes not only the commands also you windows will have a little smile now. I try to make you a suggestion
if MASTER Primary = WindowsXP and MASTER Secondary = Ubuntu
do it like I discribed 09:18.
To set the boot order whatever doesn't matter at all
cause you just have to clearify that 1st Master HDD is the primary boot device
this is where the MBR and Grub will be come to play.