Arch Linux

BFG70

Member

From: Milan,Italy

Registered: 2007-08-01

Posts: 4

Can't reboot after reinstall [solved]

Hello everybody! this is my first post on the forum, so first of all thanks to all the devs for their work and to all the people here for their answers ( and please forgive my errors when i write in english!).
This is my problem: on my laptop I have WinXP on sda1 and arch on sda2, with grub installed on sda2; i modified boot.ini and I have dual boot with windows bootloader.With this configuration everything was fine, since my first "Noodle" installation.
Few days ago i decided to do some order in my laptop, so i reinstalled arch with Voodoo's cd, with the same configuration as above; i rebooted and everything was ok.Then i update all the system with pacman -Syu; upgrading went smooth with no errors (as usual in arch!), including kernel 2.6.22, but when i rebooted and chose arch from windows bootloader menu i obtain only a black screen with the word "GRUB" in the upper left corner and a sound of error from the hardware. I tried to boot from arch installation cd (arch root=/dev/sda2) and everything went well.
I search more infos and tried some workarounds, and at the end it seems that now grub can't boot from a non-bootable partition like my sda2 (bootable flag is on sda1 with windows); changing bootable flag solve the problem.So, what is changed? is a grub problem or arch booting system change? i'd prefer to boot with windows bootloader on sda1 and windows as default (because I'm not the only one using this laptop), is there a solution or i must use grub for boot also winXP? I apologize for the length of the post, and thanks in advance!

Last edited by BFG70 (2007-08-02 22:27:19)

detox332

Member

From: University of Pittsburgh

Registered: 2007-06-12

Posts: 63

Re: Can't reboot after reinstall [solved]

i dont know much (anything really) about the windows bootloader, but i do know that if you do want to switch to grub it is very easy to set windows to be the default to boot.

my grub conf:

# general configuration:
timeout   5
default   0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,3)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda4 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux Fallback
root   (hd0,3)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda4 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img

# (2) Windows
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1

it would be as easy as changing default to windows corresponding number (2 in my case)

thats just one option, someone may know how to resolve the windows bootloader issue.
~matt

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Arch64
KDE4 user

Lone_Wolf

Forum Moderator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,958

Re: Can't reboot after reinstall [solved]

Please post your boot.ini from desktop and laptop , it would also help to know what partition type you use for windows xp (probably ntfs or fat).

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Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

dawei

Member

From: China

Registered: 2007-05-02

Posts: 29

Re: Can't reboot after reinstall [solved]

I think posting your boot.ini will help a lot.
If you are using the PBR of sda2 to boot linux, you can try to copy the PBR again with dd command.

BFG70

Member

From: Milan,Italy

Registered: 2007-08-01

Posts: 4

Re: Can't reboot after reinstall [solved]

Well, i'm at work now (last day before holiday!) and i don't have my laptop here, i'll post boot.ini this evening;
my windows sda1 partition is ntfs, and yes I used the dd command to create a copy of boot record of sda2 :
dd if=/dev/sda2 of=bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
copied bootsect.lnx under windows C:  and modified boot.ini adding this entry (I don't remember the exact line i added)
But I think that the "windows part" of the configuration is ok, because windows bootloader gives me the correct options and boot windows correctly;
the problem appears when i choose arch i windows'menu and the control of booting process pass to grub, which hangs with the black screen i described above.
Most of all i'd like to know what is changed with "don't panic" release, because everything was fine and boots correctly with "noodle","gimmick", "voodoo" and "duke".
As I say above, if i change bootable flag with fdisk and put it on sda2 grub starts to work again and show me the correct options "arch" and "arch-fallback", but in this way I'll have to uncomment windows entry in grub menu.lst and boot windows from grub; it's a solution but it's not exactly what I want.
Thanks you all for replies!

BFG70

Member

From: Milan,Italy

Registered: 2007-08-01

Posts: 4

Re: Can't reboot after reinstall [solved]

Ok, my problem seems a very stupid problem: I recreated "bootsect.lnx" file with dd command, copied it on windows "C:\" substituting the old one, and now everything goes fine: I  can boot again choosing arch from windows' bootloader menu.
Probably after the reinstall the boot sector of sda2 where I installed grub was no more corresponding to the copy in old "bootsect.lnx" file under windows.
Thanks for all the replies!