First I'd like to say that I am new too Linux and am seeking to learn this operating system.

My System:
Processor: Intel Q6600
Motherboard: eVGA 780i
Hard Drives: 3 SATA 160 GB Drives(First Two setup in a Striping Raid and other just normal)
OSs: Operating a Dual Boot with XP SP3 & Vista SP1

My aspirations for my computer setup at to have a Triple Boot with XP, Vista, and Ubuntu. I currently have XP and Vista setup and operating in a Dual Boot w/ the Vista Boot loader on my Raid setup. I installed Ubuntu on the third drive in its own partition and left it to install the boot loader on HD0, but when I attempted to reboot, I received the GRUB Error 21. I tried loading Ubuntu 8.04 a couple of months ago and had the same problem. I then reloaded Ubuntu with the boot loader installed on the Ubuntu partition and am able to load into Ubuntu by changing my BIOS boot configuration to boot from the third hard drive.

I'd like to be able to boot to Ubuntu using my Vista Bootloader and would appreciate any assistance in that endeavor. I tried chainloading the grub bootloader when I had installed Ubuntu 8.04, but when I attempted to boot, I received a file not found error(hence the GRUB error 21).

I know my boot loader problem has something to do with my two hard drives from my research on the web, but I don't have a solution. Also, I can't access my Ubuntu Partition from XP or Vista and would appreciate any help in accomplishing that as well.

I have other problems as well, but I'll start with that.

Thanks in advance to anyone that provides assistance!

Also, I am running Vista as 64-bit, XP as 32-bit, and the 64-bit Version of Ubuntu 9.04.

Grub Error 21 is "selected disk does not exist".

This could mean the Raid setup may be not detected by Ubuntu.

You need to copy Ubuntu's first 512 bytes into Vista booting partition to fire up Ubuntu. The steps to use Vista's bootmgr to boot Linux is here.

If you intend to add systems to the box ditch the RAID! I have Grub booting about 35 systems. 5 of them MS Windows (W2k,Xp,Vista-64, W7-32 & w7-64). Raid is a handicap because not every system can see it.

There are a few Windows drivers to mount Linux partitions available for Xp and Vista.

Thanks for the help, I tried putting "dd =if/dev/sdc2 of=/mnt/sda/sdc2.bin bs=512 count=1" into the Ubuntu terminal to copy those 512 bytes, but received a permission denied for dev/sdc2. Any suggestions?

I am pretty sure sdc2 is right, I tried a couple of different varients, but got the same results.

For Ubuntu you'll need sudo - do it as "sudo dd ..."

Well, I used the "sudo" and it worked, but I couldn't copy it to the vista hard drive cause I am unable to mount the raid drives in ubuntu. I copied the 512 bytes to a file and put it on a floppy drive. Ubuntu and Vista can see the floppy and my dvd-rom drive. I put the .bin file in my vista drive and followed the rest of the directions. I said the .bin file was in /ubuntu.bin. When the vista bootloader attempted to run the linux entry, it said it was unable to find the .bin file. I'm assuming this is because it was not in the proper place. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks again about the "sudo". Is that something that you need to place in front of all commands in ubuntu?

Thanks all!!

"man sudo_root"

I don't understand, should I try that in the terminal to fix the drives?

Nope - that is to allow you to answer for yourself this question you (also) posed ...

Ahhh, thanks then, I'll check it out!

Wait a minute

According to M$ practice you will have to install Xp first. When Vista was installed it used Xp partition as a springboard to boot itself while itself must reside in another partition which is not bootable independently. Therefore the bootmgr should be in Xp partition and so should the Ubuntu's first 512 bytes.

So have you put the Ubuntu.bin in the partition (should be XP) that dual-boots the two M$ Windows?

This is the arrogance of M$ systems. Their boot loader does not come out to another partition to fetch the part to dual boot. The owner has to put it on a plate and hand deliver to the the "c" drive for it to boot a non-M$ system.

Thanks for the help saikee! I didn't know that about my XP and Vista Dual boot and that is interesting. Well I moved the file to my XP drive and tried it again, but the only thing that comes up is "GRUB _". With the underscore being a cursor. I tried typing, but nothing comes up.

However, I actually decided to try something else. I have an almost complete machine that is just sitting and collecting dust, so I thought I might build a Linux machine with it. I figure, like you said no raid and since I'm a a beginner it would be better to simplify things. So when I'm done with this post I'm going to give it a try. I'll let ya know the results. Thanks Again man!!!

WJStyles,

In one PC I am boot a Xp in hda5, Win7-32 and Win-64 in sda10 and sda11. These three M$ systems are booted from a Dos partition in sda1 which is completely empty as the NTLDR and bootmgr files are all hidden there. I put Ubuntu Linux in sda17 so that it controls the MBR. The rest of the disk is empty.

So to boot Xp Grub boot to sda1 which fires up bootmgr from the Win7. Inside it I choose NTLDR for old Windows. I then get the standard NTLDR screen to choose either Xp or Dos to boot.