No XP in Grub = anxiety attack

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hokay. I’m a new Linux user altogether as well as openSUSE 11.0/ KDE 4.0 (4.1?). I was a previous XP user and still need XP critically. However, I can’t seem to boot XP at all. It wasn’t in grub until I modified menu.lst, and now the option just doesn’t work (gave me an Error 18 once too). My computer automatically boots to grub and doesn’t give me a shot at BIOS. I’ve tried a bunch of stuff with my menu.lst. My menu.lst looks like this:

Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sun Aug 3 23:38:59 CDT 2008

default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message
##YaST - activate

###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.0
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK1032G_26SL9293S-part6 resume=/dev/sda5 splash=silent showopts vga=0x314
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-default

###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe – openSUSE 11.0
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK1032G_26SL9293S-part6 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off x11failsafe vga=0x314
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-default

title Windows XP
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
root (hd1,0)
chainloader+1
boot

I can’t seem to upload a picture of my partitions at the moment, but I have sda, sda1 thru sda7.
sda is 93.1 GB, sda1 is 92.9, sda4 is 251 MB. (sda = sda1+sda4)

sda4 is unknown type, sda5-7 all have Linux somewhere in the type name (5-7 are 2, 20, and 70.9 GB respectively).

I hope this doesn’t mean I formatted my XP. I’m new to Linux (love it), but I have files/programs on my XP that I really really need. If anyone knows anything about this, I’d really appreciate it.

Also, just for grins, my grub.conf is:

setup --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 (hd0,5) (hd0,5)
quit

And my device.map is:

(hd0) /dev/sda

#2

mine reads

###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
title WIN XP
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

But I have 2 hd’s

just make a backup, and try some combinations

#3

Usually xp is in the first partition on the first disk so sda1. You can check it in a terminal as root performing the command fdisk -l. It should return between the others the partition type as ntfs. In this case try to change root (hd1,0) to rootnoverify (hd0,0). Or give a try to gag, a boot manager to me easier to configure than grub when you want to boot xp. Just be carefull to install grub also in the linux root partition

#4

First off, thanks for the ridiculously speedy replies. God bless Linux forum users.

To the suggestion about changing root (hd0,0) to rootnoverify (hd1,). I just tried that (then sapped my wireless internet of my own fault, but that’s up again apparently), and I got the following error:

Error 8, kernel must be loaded before booting.

Also, in my frazzled post last night, I left off a couple more details that might be handy. I think I have a 120 GB hard-drive, ONE hard-drive, but I believe it to be partitioned. Second of all, my partition manager doesn’t show sda2 or sda3.

To the fdisk -l thing, I don’t know where to run that, I tried doing that in Konsole but I got a bash command not found error.

THANK YOU for the help.

#5

You have to be root to run fdisk!

#6

I can’t seem to upload a picture of my partitions at the moment, but I have sda, sda1 thru sda7.
sda is 93.1 GB, sda1 is 92.9, sda4 is 251 MB. (sda = sda1+sda4)

sda4 is unknown type, sda5-7 all have Linux somewhere in the type name (5-7 are 2, 20, and 70.9 GB respectively).

Something is not right with your data. The numbers add up to ~180GB. Sda4 is an extended partition; sda5,6,7 are inside of it, i.e., the sum of 5-7 = 4 (assuming all of the space allocated to 4 was used). You won’t see entries anywhere for partitions numbered 2 or 3, because those primary partition slots were skipped and the extended partition created (an extended is always nbr 4).

Also, in my frazzled post last night, I left off a couple more details that might be handy. I think I have a 120 GB hard-drive, ONE hard-drive, but I believe it to be partitioned. Second of all, my partition manager doesn’t show sda2 or sda3.

If there is only ONE drive, that means device.map is correct, but the Windows stanza in menu.lst is wrong. This is the first thing to try: Change that stanza to

root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

To the fdisk -l thing, I don’t know where to run that, I tried doing that in Konsole but I got a bash command not found error.

Giving us an fdisk -l may clear up the confusion. But the above may just be the fix.

setup --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 (hd0,5) (hd0,5)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK1032G_26SL9293S-part6

This is very important. Note from grub.conf that grub is being installed in the boot sector of the openSUSE root partition (hd0,5), not the MBR (hd0). If openSUSE is in fact booting, and grub was not previously installed in the MBR (i.e., diff than what your grub.conf shows), then that means that the Windows MBR is still there, and that openSUSE is booting because its partition has been “flagged” as bootable (also called the "active partition). When in Konsole, switch to root and do:

#cfdisk /dev/sda

Look at the bootable column. It’s likely that it is set for sda5. If it is, you can use cfdisk to turn off this bootable flag and turn the flag on for sda1 instead (don’t have 2 bootable flags!). XP will then boot, if in fact the XP MBR is still in place. That will get you back to your critical XP. If the change to menu.lst above didn’t work, try this next.

gave me an Error 18 once too

This points to a different potential problem, but don’t get into this until you’ve tried both the other suggestions above. Grub error 18 can occur when the boot sector (which on your system is apparently in partition 6) is beyond the 1024 cylinder boundary. Check your bios for an “LBA” (“large block addressing”) or similar setting.

My computer automatically boots to grub and doesn’t give me a shot at BIOS

It’s there. Maybe you’ve got a very fast system, so you’re not intercepting the bios before it hands off to grub. But the bios is initializing (otherwise you’d never get to grub at all). Usually it’s the Delete or F1 or F2 that gets you into bios setup. At the instant you power on, repeatedly depress the applicable key, that will get you in.

#7

In fact it is confusing me. One or two hds? If one, is the first primary partition devoted to windoze? fdisk would give us a correct point of view of the partitioning scheme. Anyway this is the section of my menu.lst that boots windoze, keeping in mind that on the first partition i have osx86, so ntfs is the second one:
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,7)
chainloader (hd0,1)+1

So you see that if windoze is in the first partition i should use
chainloader (hd0,0)+1
Hope this helps.

#8

Well, discouraging news from the root konsole, the command # cfdisk /dev/sda yields the following:

I have a 100 GB hard-drive (not 120 as I thought before, checked the Toshiba website and this is right *).

Heads:255, Sectors per Track:63, Cylinders 12161
_
sda5 - Logical - Linux swap / Solaris - 2155.00* MB
sda6 - Logical - Linux ext3 - 21476.21 MB
sda7 - Logical - Linux ext3 - 76133.20 MB
sda4 - Primary - Linux plaintext - 263.21 MB

I’m beginning to think that I really hosed my XP (that’s why we don’t pick to use the default partitioning settings I suppose). Thanks for all the replies. I figured I’d wait to change my boot loader until a brave Linux soul examines the cfdisk stuff.*

#9

What happened to sda1 - the partition table display scrolls with the up/down arrows. Since I do not see an ntfs or dos type file system in the list you provided, I am assuming that you didn’t check for a scrollable list There has got to be an sda1 or your partition table is really screwed up.

Here is what cfdisk shows for a bootable partition

sda1      Boot       Primary Linux ext3                     106.93
#10

@Shwefty -

Please post the result of doing in a terminal, as root:

fdisk -l

That will display the partition table, including the extended partition. cfdisk displays in a sort of gui mode within the terminal, and it scrolls; you may not have copied the entire output. fdisk will be easier for you; it is strictly character mode. Just copy what fdisk reports from the terminal window and paste that back in a post here. Don’t assume you are in trouble; certainly don’t do anything drastic until we see your fdisk.

#11

I agree with mingus. It is since my first post that i an calling for an fdisk but nothing! Without it i cannot continue to investigate. So please provide us those fdisk stuff