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-   -   delay in starting ubuntu 9.04 after upgrading to winxp (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/delay-in-starting-ubuntu-9-04-after-upgrading-to-winxp-822084/)

aharp 07-25-2010 01:48 PM

delay in starting ubuntu 9.04 after upgrading to winxp
 
I realize "dual boot startup delays" are treated extensively in various discussions, but I have not seen one that exactly describes my predicament. I have 2 hdd's with ubuntu on one and xp on the other. Before I upgraded to xp from win98 recently, I started linux from the screen created by this text at the end of the boot.lst file:

title Windows xp
map (hd0,0) (hd1,0)
map (hd1,0) (hd0,0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

with a timeout of 10 seconds. Perhaps obviously, xp is on hdd0 and ubuntu on hdd1 and the bios is set to boot from hdd1. This worked fine with win98, but after the upgrade, evidently winxp somehow recognized a boot conflict and now when I startup I get a 40 second delay before the selection screen for ubuntu or xp comes up. After the delay it works fine, just like before. My question is, is there a way to get rid of this undesirable delay? (It would also be nice, but not necessary, to understand where the delay comes from.)

I apologize if this is so elementary that I should have been able to recognize the problem. I could simply reload ubuntu without any loss of critical data, although I have d/l some system enhancements.

Thanks.

pobrika 07-25-2010 04:06 PM

My first thougts are if XP is on the first drive and ubuntu is on the second, where is your boot loader 1st or 2nd drive, and which drive is your BIOS booting from as first disk?

the setup which works best for me is XP on disk1 ubuntu on disk2 grub on disk1. You can reinstall grub very easily to the first disk from within your ubuntu os, if you did run into difficulties you can always use a live CD. you need to to find out which grub you are using as well as grub2 has a completely different setup than grub one. Grub2 I believe came with ubuntu 9.10 onwards.

Remember you can easily restore your windows MBR using the XP recovery console.

Another thought is it maybe trying to boot from a CD has one been left in the drive, or a usb stick in the server. this can cause boot issues.

Try issuing "fdisk -l" from the terrminal in ubuntu, and posting the grub.conf/menu.lst from /boot/grub as well.

My config look as follows use as example only.

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

title Ubuntu 8.10
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.xxxxx
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.xxxxx
savedefault
boot

aharp 07-26-2010 07:20 AM

Answering your questions
 
First off, thank you so much for taking time and showing interest in responding.

I do think most of your questions were answered in my original post: XP is on hdd0, ubuntu 9.04 (and therefore the original grub) on hdd1, boot from hdd1.

Re the computer trying to boot from a CD, no CDs are loaded. The "usb stick in the server" comment I did not understand.

The issue is that something changed when I upgraded from win98 which loaded without the delay to XP which has the annoying 40 pause every time it starts or restarts. If I boot from hdd0 directly into XP of course there is no delay and the desktop comes up in significantly less than 40 seconds (I take great pains to keep windoz from loading extraneous programs at startup).

Any ideas on the cause of the delay would be appreciated.

pobrika 07-26-2010 06:41 PM

I can only think this delay is coming from your POST start up.
I would check which device is set to boot first and make sure it is not looking at booting from the network, cd, floppy or usb as first device.
Check if you have any other bios extras on like perform memory checks.

I have had difficulties witrh my bios in the past and on several occasion I have gone back to the default configuration and setup the disk booting section again. not sure how your bios is setup but you can hide the splash screen if yours has one to reveal more info about the post boot, have you tried this?


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