floppy that boots into windows?

karl_marx · 04-28-2006, 03:59 PM

i'm dual booting Ubuntu and windows 98se. grub can boot Ubuntu fine, but for some reason it can't chainload windows. i've tried everything to no avail, and now i'm wondering...

is there a floppy disc image i could download that would bypass grub and boot directly into windows? (using windows' bootloader). then i could just pop in a disc and boot windows.

pljvaldez · 04-28-2006, 04:04 PM

Grub should be able to do this. Try reading this thread, this guy is booting 100+ OS's with Grub.

Some things that will help us figure out what to do with Grub is where is Win 98 installed (primary partition, 2nd partition, 1st disk, 2nd disk, etc)? Was it orginally installed on the first drive, then you swapped drives? Usually some combination of hiding partitions/drives and mapping drives (i.e. tricking windows into thinking it is on the first partition of the first drive) can be used in Grub to make it boot.

As for the floppy boot thing, you could try using the Ultimate Boot CD or google for smart boot manager. But if it's on some weird partition, you probably have to do hiding and mapping to make it work with those also.

pixellany · 04-28-2006, 07:04 PM

You can also put back the Windows mbr and then make a Linux boot floppy

J.W. · 04-29-2006, 12:40 AM

Make a Windows boot floppy.

Alternatively check out the Ultimate Boot CD Have fun

karl_marx · 04-29-2006, 11:56 AM

my setup is suprisingly simple, with only one hard drive containing two partitions, windows (hd0,0) and linux (hd0,1).

i'm guessing Ubuntu installed a legacy version of grub, because that's what Fedora did. first, i'll make a bootable grub floppy with the latest version, and try chainloading windows again. if that fails, i'll try the smart boot manager.

p.s. "fdisk /mbr" from the win98 floppy has never done anything for me. although it appears to run successfully, grub continues to start first when i boot.

wraithe · 04-29-2006, 12:24 PM

thats easy...just open grub in an editor and alter the boot info for windows...
its not hard...i had to rewrite my grub boot loader not just one thing but virtually every partitions information for the two drives...8 parts too...

the file you need to open is,
/boot/grub/menu.lst
open it in an editor
scroll down to the bottom of the file and you should find this...or very simular...the windows info refers to the first partition(,0) on the first drive(hd0)...

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for an existing
# linux installation on /dev/hda6.
title mandriva-32 (on /dev/hda6)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 resume=/dev/hda5 splash=silent
initrd /boot/initrd.img
savedefault
boot

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/hda1
title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

now the only other question is, if this dont work, did you resize the ntfs partition or did you already have 2 partitions prior to installing linux...it is important info to know???

karl_marx · 04-29-2006, 07:31 PM

no, once again chainloading failed. grub runs all the steps

Quote:

root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

and then the letters "GRUB" appear and the computer goes into an incessant beep with the built in pc speaker...

to answer you wraithe

Quote:

did you resize the ntfs partition or did you already have 2 partitions prior to installing linux

to start, i had one partition taking up the whole drive (with windows on it), but then i shrunk it to about half of the hard drive using partition magic. Ubuntu made itself a partition on the newly unallocated space.

i hope that answers your question.

Emerson · 04-29-2006, 07:41 PM

rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

This should work. You do not need makeactive if you have only one Windows installation.

wraithe · 04-30-2006, 07:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by karl_marx

to answer you wraithe

to start, i had one partition taking up the whole drive (with windows on it), but then i shrunk it to about half of the hard drive using partition magic. Ubuntu made itself a partition on the newly unallocated space.

i hope that answers your question.

i dont know about resizing ntfs, i have never had success and dont do it no more...
now when i setup a drive that will have win as well as linux, i just set the partition from the start...
i have tried several methods to repartition ntfs and everytime it has killed the partition...
and with a simular error to what you are getting...
can you read the info from linux and if you can then it may pay to burn your data from ntfs to cd and then reload xp...

but then i stopped using xp and now just have it on the drive(dont know why)...