Grub does not boot Windows XP

ninadb · 02-10-2006, 05:54 AM

Hi

Well here goes a detailed explanation.
I have a pc with to hard disks hda and hdb.
Upto 15 days back I was running (infact quadruple booting) Xp and linux distros.
XP(/dev/hda1)
Slackware 10.2
FC3
Ubuntu (on /dev/hdb)
Kanotix
Evertything was hunky dory and I was happy. One fine day Windows XP started giving errors. Whenever I started an application(Excel,Firefox) a message would popup
"Windows-corrupt file C/Windows/prefetch/xxx.pf is corrupt or unreadable run chkdsk"
After this message all applications would run smoothly. This became very frequent and my firefox files (bookmarks,cache) would become corrupt and I had to install and reinstall firefox.
Even Azureus started giving these message and I stopped using it.
Suspecting a problem in my /dev/hda1 I started about reinstalling/repairing Win XP.
My first problem was that the XP CD which I had was not bootable.
So I had to run setup and go through all the steps till the repair menu came up and this finally ended in
"Windows cannot repair the installation as C: is corrupt"
In all this effort I lost my GRUB menu. I restored it after booting into rescue mode. Now I am able to boot into Linux but GRUB does not boot XP
The follwoing message is displayed and GRUB goes back to the menu with the time specified i.e. GRUB restarts.
Starting WinXP professional
Filesystem is FAT and partition type is 0xb3
root (hd0,0)
2 more lines

Starting GRUB Stage 2

After this I am back into the GRUB menu with the first option selected and the time remaining displayed.

Questions
1. What could be the problem. Why am I not able to boot to XP
2.Can I format /dev/hda1 from Linux. All my partitions are mounted in Linux and I can access files from Linux.

Thanks
Ninad

Maestro485 · 02-10-2006, 06:35 AM

In the file /boot/grub/menu.lst you should have an entry like this:

title Windows XP
root(hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

That should boot windows for you.

TruongAn · 02-10-2006, 06:45 AM

Use these line to boot windows:

Code:

title Widoze XP
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Provided that your window is in the first partition on your first drive
Where to add these line?
It depends on where do you put grub in (what distro own grub?)

To format a partition from linux, use mkfs command