Boot Loader Problems

Scotter

Hi everyone,

Ok, heres my situation. I have a windows xp pro installation. Yesterday I decided to start using linux, ubuntu to be exact. I took another harddrive and installed linux onto it. Now I have done this before and had a boot loader problem, so this time when I put the new harddrive in I unpluged the power to the harddrive that had XP on it, but apparently I should have removed the IDE cable too or something, because now I cant get into XP at all. I tried removing the Ubuntu harddrive and just having the XP harddrive try and boot, but that doesnt work(XP harddirve was set to Master). Right now my setup is Ubuntu harddrive-Master, XP harddrive-Slave. I tried using the recovery console of my XP install disk, but it says my administrator password is wrong, but im a solid 99.999% sure its right. So Im wondering if something else is wrong. BTW I can run ubuntu fine, and I can open the disk with XP on it, and all my files are there, so it wasnt formated or anything like that. Im pretty sure its the boot loader, but I'm not sure how i can get it back on there. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated here.

Thanks,
Scotter

Sep 20 '07 #1

epots9

moved from the articles to the forum

Sep 20 '07 #2

Scotter

Ok, I'm to the point now where if i take the linux harddrive out, and just have the XP one, I can boot. But I cannot get grub to do a duel boot.

Here is fdisk-l
Here is device.map
And here is my menu.lst
My XP harddisk has a utility partition, so thats why its (hd1,1) im pretty sure thats right.... Anything is greatly appreciated!

Sep 20 '07 #3

Nepomuk

Try editing /boot/grub/menu.lst and change
to
if Windows is on the slave drive. You may have to change the entry after "root", if Windows isn't on sdb1 (second drive -> 1, first partition -> 0).

Greetings,
Nepomuk

Sep 21 '07 #4

Scotter

Try editing /boot/grub/menu.lst and change

Expand|Select|Wrap|Line Numbers

1. root      (sd1,1)
2.  

if Windows is on the slave drive. You may have to change the entry after "root", if Windows isn't on sdb1 (second drive -> 1, first partition -> 0).

Hi nepomuk, I tried that and got the error parsing number. If I change "sd1,1" to "hd1,1" then theres no error, but it cannot find the selected disk. Also i tried "hd1,0", "hd1,1", "hd1,2", and "hd1,3" just in case, but still it couldn't find the selected disk. Any ideas of why its not working? Also I'm not sure if I'm correct in this or not, but in device.map if it says;
doesn't sda mean it has a serial interface? and hda means parallel interface? because both my hard drives are IDE.... but thats just a thought.

thanks,
scotter

Sep 24 '07 #5

Nepomuk

Hi nepomuk, I tried that and got the error parsing number. If I change "sd1,1" to "hd1.1" then there's no error, but it cannot find the selected disk. Also I tried hd1,0-3 just in case, but still it couldn't find the selected disk. Any ideas of why its not working?

scotter

Could your slave drive be sd0? What is the partition with windows called, when Ubuntu is booted up?

Greetings,
Nepomuk

Sep 24 '07 #6

Scotter

ok, im not sure if i understand what your saying there, but ubuntu has (hd0,0) set as the root, If thats what you were wondering. Its like it doesnt recognize the second hard drive at all...

Sep 24 '07 #7

Nepomuk

ok, im not sure if i understand what your saying there, but ubuntu has (hd0,0) set as the root, If thats what you were wondering. Its like it doesnt recognize the second hard drive at all...

What is the output of
then? Could your second harddrive be formated with NTFS by any chance?

Greetings,
Nepomuk

Sep 24 '07 #8

Scotter

Ok, this is what ls /dev/sd* gives me
and yes, my xp drive is ntfs.

Thanks,
Scotter

Sep 24 '07 #9

Nepomuk

Ok, this is what ls /dev/sd* gives me

Expand|Select|Wrap|Line Numbers

1. /dev/sda  /dev/sda1  /dev/sda2  /dev/sda5  /dev/sdb  /dev/sdb1  /dev/sdb2
2.  

and yes, my xp drive is ntfs.

Thanks,
Scotter

OK, Ubuntu will not recognize your drive, until you install NTFS drivers - these are not 100% functional, but work most of the time.
Ubuntu recognizes the presence of two special devices, one of them with 3 Partitions, one with two. Do you have a USB Stick, more than one SATA drive, a Flash Card Reader or similar in your computer? How many partitions does the drive with windows have?

Also, try using sd0.0 instead of hd1.0. That might do the job.

Greetings,
Nepomuk

Sep 24 '07 #10

Scotter

OK, Ubuntu will not recognize your drive, until you install NTFS drivers - these are not 100% functional, but work most of the time.
Ubuntu recognizes the presence of two special devices, one of them with 3 Partitions, one with two. Do you have a USB Stick, more than one SATA drive, a Flash Card Reader or similar in your computer? How many partitions does the drive with windows have?

Also, try using sd0.0 instead of hd1.0. That might do the job.

Greetings,
Nepomuk

Ok, i guess first of all where do i get ntfs drivers? Basically all that I have is 2 cd drives, 2 hard drives, and a usb scanner attached. My xp drive has a utility partition on it as well as the xp partition. And the Ubuntu harddrive was blank when I installed ubuntu on it, so that should be everything on it. Unless when I updated ubuntu, would that make the extra sd?

When you say "use sd0.0 instead of hd1.0" do you mean in menu.lst? because when i do that it doesnt boot, and it says error parsing number.

Thanks,
Scotter

Sep 24 '07 #11

Nepomuk

Ok, i guess first of all where do i get ntfs drivers? Basically all that I have is 2 cd drives, 2 hard drives, and a usb scanner attached. My xp drive has a utility partition on it as well as the xp partition. And the Ubuntu harddrive was blank when I installed ubuntu on it, so that should be everything on it. Unless when I updated ubuntu, would that make the extra sd?

When you say "use sd0.0 instead of hd1.0" do you mean in menu.lst? because when i do that it doesnt boot, and it says error parsing number.

Thanks,
Scotter

You can get ntfs drivers, by starting Synaptic and searching for NTFS. That's useful, when you want to access the Windows drive when under Ubuntu, but it shouldn't be relevant here.

Next, I guess one or both of your Harddrives are SATA drives, correct? (That means, they are connected to the mainboard with a plug, which is probably a bit broader than one finger instead of the size of three fingers.)

If so, the Harddrives will be /dev/sda and /dev/sdb while /dev/hda and /dev/hdb will be the CD drives.

Next, I guess that your Linux drive has three partitions (root, swap and home maybe?) and your Windows drive has two.

What does
give you? (That's a small 'L', not a big 'i'.)

Greetings,
Nepomuk

Sep 24 '07 #12

Scotter

Ok, fdisk -l gives
And this is what I was wondering about earlier, I don't think i worded it correctly tho. My hard drives are IDE, not serial. Both of them use the wide ribbon connector.

As far as accessing NTFS volumes, I can access anything on the other hard drive from the Ubuntu hard drive, so I'm assuming that there shouldn't be any problems there...

Thanks,
Scotter

Sep 24 '07 #13

Nepomuk

Ok, fdisk -l gives

Expand|Select|Wrap|Line Numbers

1. Disk /dev/sda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
2. 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
3. Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
4.  
5.    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
6. /dev/sda1   *           1        4678    37576003+  83  Linux
7. /dev/sda2            4679        4865     1502077+   5  Extended
8. /dev/sda5            4679        4865     1502046   82  Linux swap / Solaris
9.  
10. Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
11. 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
12. Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
13.  
14.    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
15. /dev/sdb1               1           5       40131   de  Dell Utility
16. /dev/sdb2   *           6        4862    39013852+   7  HPFS/NTFS
17.  

And this is what I was wondering about earlier, I don't think i worded it correctly tho. My hard drives are IDE, not serial. Both of them use the wide ribbon connector.

As far as accessing NTFS volumes, I can access anything on the other hard drive from the Ubuntu hard drive, so I'm assuming that there shouldn't be any problems there...

Thanks,
Scotter

Ah, just saw, you posted that earlier too. Well, doesn't matter.
The drives being IDE surprises me just as much as you, but I guess, it won't matter.
Have you tried replacing your entry
in the menu.lst with a simple
?

By the way, do you actually need that Dell Utilities Partition?

Greetings,
Nepomuk

Sep 24 '07 #14

Scotter

Yeah I thought that was odd, but anyways. I just tried that, but it still comes up with cannot find specified disk, or disk does not exist, something along thoose lines.

Yes if at all possible I would like to keep the utilities partition.

Any other ideas?

Scotter

Sep 24 '07 #15

Nepomuk

Yeah I thought that was odd, but anyways. I just tried that, but it still comes up with cannot find specified disk, or disk does not exist, something along thoose lines.

Yes if at all possible I would like to keep the utilities partition.

Any other ideas?

Scotter

It's just a slight modification and might not do anything at all, but try
as your entry in the menu.lst.

If that doesn't work, try changing the device.map to
as that's what they are listed as.

Greetings,
Nepomuk

Sep 24 '07 #16

Scotter

It's just a slight modification and might not do anything at all, but try

Expand|Select|Wrap|Line Numbers

1. title           Windows XP Pro
2. map             (hd1) (hd0)
3. map             (hd0) (hd1)
4. rootnoverify    (hd1,1)
5. savedefault
6. chainloader     +1
7.  

as your entry in the menu.lst.

If that doesn't work, try changing the device.map to

Expand|Select|Wrap|Line Numbers

1. (hd0)   /dev/sda
2. (hd1)   /dev/sdb
3.  

as that's what they are listed as.

Greetings,
Nepomuk

Ok, I tried changing menu.lst. Also menu.lst was saved as sda, sdb. I tried changing to hda,hdb, but it didnt work any better. Still says selected disk does not exist.

Scotter

Sep 24 '07 #17

Scotter

Also, just looking around the properties of the disk, I noticed that its listing the disk type as SCSI. I don't know if that matters or not, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Sep 24 '07 #18

Scotter

Another thing that i just noticed, with ubuntu hd set to master, and xp hd set to slave is the setup that i currently have. I wanted to get into xp so i took the ubuntu hd out and set the xp hd to master, but when i do that the computer doesnt boot, however if i set to cable select and put it on the master end of the IDE it boots fine... why???

Sep 24 '07 #19

Nepomuk

I don't know about the Cable-Select-Thing, but at least the listing of the Harddrives as SCSI explains, why they are named sda and sdb. I don't know, why they are listed as SCSI in the first place, but there you go.

If you call
it should list hda and hdb as the CD drives (when mounted), doesn't it?

All I can think of right now, is to update grub with
and, if that doesn't work, continue playing around with the menu.lst.

Have you tried using root instead of rootnoverify with everything else the same? Have you tried just adding a makeactive?

You can of course try reinstalling GRUB. If nothing of that works, the best solution probably will be to ask the Ubuntu Community, there are loads of cases like this listed there, maybe one will solve your problem.

Greetings,
Nepomuk

Sep 24 '07 #20

cargilcm

rootnoverify issue still persists on my computer also...I have looked for months and to no avail for a solution to this problem..my computer demonstrates all the same symptoms?!? If anyone has any luck please feel free to discuss - follybeachris@gmail.col

Oct 22 '07 #21