Dual boot Linpus and Windows XP - restore grub?
 

Hi, I'm a Linux novice so I'm getting a bit frustrated with this problem:

I have an Acer Revo 70 with Linpus installed and I have tried to follow the instructions here http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_l...rst.htm?page=1 to dual boot with Windows XP.

The problem is, I'm using an Ubuntu 12.04 live CD to restore the GRUB bootloader but it's not working. I expect there could be extra complications because Linpus may not recognise GRUB or may be using an older version of GRUB.

On page 5 ( http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_l...rst.htm?page=5 ) it says to type 'sudo grub'. If I do this I get "command not found". I searched for grub as per the directions here http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ive-cd-785766/ but none of the locations I found seemed to work.

I tried the tutorial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6fpIe-QnVE but this didn't work because the "grub-install /dev/sda" command failed. I tried the "sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda" command and this seemed to work but now I get the grub rescue prompt when I try to boot! :eek:

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I get the feeling that the solution should be fairly simple, but that I have been digging myself into a hole.:confused:

I would recommend you chroot update-grub. That way you're using the grub version installed on the system and you won't have to worry about it.

Thanks for the advice sag47 :)

While waiting for my first post to be moderated, I got a little bit further.
I used Rescutux to repair GRUB on the Linpus partition and have been able to modify menu.lst to choose between Linpus and Windows XP.

Partitions are as follows (all on hd0)
sda0 = Linpus recovery
sda1 = Linpus
sda2 = Windows XP

In menu.lst
The problem I now have is that ‘makeactive’ (or maybe Windows XP too) is setting the bootable flag (asterisk in fdisk partition table) to TRUE for sda2. This is a hitch because the BIOS seems incapable of booting anything other than the Linpus ext3 partition. So I need it to always start from the GRUB menu on the Linpus partition.

Is there a way to make the active/boot partition sda1 when Windows XP shuts down? E.g. put something like this in menu.lst:

Or is there a neater solution to make sda2 the active partition just before WinXP boots, but keep sda1 active the rest of the time?

Edit:

For some background on the BIOS issue, please see my post here: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thr...h-SLIC-version as Excalibran.

I think I've figured out the solution: have BOTH Linpus (sda1) and Windows XP (sda2) partitions flagged as boot/active.
This way, I can remove the 'makeactive' line from menu.lst and the machine will always start with the GRUB menu (even after shutting down from Windows XP).

I guess this is acceptable because Linux doesn't care about the active flag and Windows XP will ignore the ext3 partitions?

Yea I would say remove makeactive. I've not ever used that option myself. I usually leave the setting up of boot flags to initial partitioning and just leave it.

SAM

Thanks for confirming my suspicions, Sam :) The Revo 70 seems stable now, so I'm going to mark this thread as resolved.