no windows option in grub.tried mounting

timberwolf90 · 11-07-2007, 11:06 AM

Well, last night my mom was working on our home pc in windows (duel booting linux and windows) and she says it froze in the middle of printing something. She restarted it and it went into linux (does automatically, as it is first choice in grub).

So I attempted to restart in windows again and to my utter shock, in grub, there was no "Windows" option.

Linux version is Freespie 2.0.0.
Windows is Microsoft Windows (without SP2...tried to install it but took forever, not normal i think).

Some info according to GNOME Partition Editor in Linux:
Win: 25.4GB with 18.6GB used. NTFS and on partition /dev/hda1 Mounted on /mnt/winxp
another partition for files (not Win or Linux): 25.4GB with 18.1GB used. NTFS and on partition /dev/hda5 Mounted on /mnt/dos
Linux: 19.4GB with 2.4GB used. reiserf and on partition /dev/hda8

I went to "Diagnostics" and it says:

...$LogFile indicated unclean shutdown (0,0)
...
Failed to mount 'dev/hda5': Operation not supported
Mount is denied because NTFS logfile is unclean...

Then says to
1. boot windows and shut it down cleanly (CANT!!!)
or
2. if you have a removable device, then in taskbar...'Safely Remove Hardware'...blah blah blah
or
3. Run ntfsfix version 1.31.1 on Linux
or
4. Mount the NTFS volume with the 'ro' option in read-only mode

I tried #3 and it says everything went well...then tried booting to Windows and nothing in grub (UGH!)

I tried #4 and did the following:

Code:

sudo mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/winxp -t ntfs -r

and

Code:

sudo mount /dev/hda5 /mnt/dos -t ntfs -r

I could view the /mnt but both /mnt/winxp and /mnt/dos were locked and couldn't open.
I tried rebooting again and still no Windows in grub

I tried changing /mnt/winxp permissions

Code:

sudo chmod 777 /mnt/winxp
chmod: changing permissions of '/mnt/winxp': Read-only file system

Nothing changed. Could view /mnt/winxp in shell though

Browsed the internet and found out how to view /mnt/winxp as root:

Code:

go to "Run command" (or alt-F2)
kdesc -c konqueror file:///etc/httpd/

I could view /mnt/dos and /mnt/winxp but still no booting in windows

I went back into "Diagnostics" and it said to use ntfs-3g and to force mount the drive

I already had ntfs-3g installed and so I tried it. In /mnt/dos it worked (could view files) but nothing in /mnt/winxp

Sooooo.....what else should I do. I've tried mounting and still can't boot windows.

timberwolf90 · 11-07-2007, 11:14 AM

just realized I should put this topic in General

moved to: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...9/#post2951142

mrrangerman · 11-07-2007, 11:18 AM

Why not just put in your windows cd boot to it and restore your MBR, then after you have windows up and running, use a live-cd to restore Grub?

Or just restore your windows entery take a look at this howto by saikee it has about anything on restoring Grub you need.

timberwolf90 · 11-07-2007, 01:17 PM

I put in my WinXP cd and in shell, put in "fixmbr" says "bash: fixmbr: command not found"

I'll try to repair MBR with my windows cd...but dont ever recall anything about MBR in Windows...we'll see...

timberwolf90 · 11-07-2007, 01:57 PM

Put in WinXP cd and booted from it.
I went to Install, then repair..it checked my disks and i think thats pretty much it.
It then restarted and still no change.

I didn't see anything about MBR...

kai_summers · 11-07-2007, 02:05 PM

ok firstly load into Linux

Edit /etc/grub.conf

Check to see if there is a reference to windows there if not here is a copy of my grub loader..

Code:

# grub.conf generated by Ubuntu
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,1)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda2
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Ubuntu Linux
	root (hd0,1)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.7-10 ro root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide-scsi
	initrd /initrd-2.4.7-10.img
title Windows XP
	rootnoverify (hd0,0)
	chainloader +1

You should only need to add this to the end of the conf file

Code:

title Windows XP
	rootnoverify (hd0,0)
	chainloader +1

Replacing the title with your distribution of windows.. If you have vista please reply back and I have a copy of the Grub file for Vista.

Hope this helps

Kai

timberwolf90 · 11-07-2007, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kai_summers

Edit /etc/grub.conf

There is no such file...weird

timberwolf90

timberwolf90 · 11-07-2007, 04:23 PM

I thought about booting from a floppy but none of my floppy's I had would work...
So I used my USB thumb drive.
I used Super Grub...hehehe

SO I edited bios and first choice was USB-ZIP and amazingly Windows was there in grub!

Thanks for the advice!

timberwolf90 · 11-07-2007, 04:36 PM

UGH!

I decided to restart, just to make sure it would work normally, and windows disappeared again!

I really have no idea what to do now...

please help!! Getting very frustrated

Tinkster · 11-07-2007, 06:05 PM

Closed by this note