Just BORKED a dual boot

lmellen · 2005-03-09 21:23:29

:? I had Windows Xp dual booted with another linux system. I'm very pleased with Arch, so in Xp I went to admin. something, and then to disc management and removed the old linux partitions, created a new one, formatted that one, then removed it. I cleaned that part of the HD for the new install. I then booted up and installed Arch Linux. (I've done this before on a dell laptop. I am using a IBM t-23 with Arch to type this now.) I don't believe I did anything wrong, but at reboot all I got was "Grub error # 17 or something like that. I messed around for awhile trying to fix the Xp system, now all I get is NTLDR is missing.

2 questions:

#1-- I haven't erased anything, is it still possible to get back inside the system and repair it??
#2-- Should I have formatted the whole HD and reinstalled Xp. Does having another Linux systen on there (Gentoo) change to many things??

I'd rather not have to reinstall Xp, But whatever is necessary.

Thanks in advance for the replies -- Larry

Snowman · 2005-03-09 22:00:29

Have you tried to boot from a floppy or CD?

lmellen · 2005-03-09 22:43:17

I have the installation cd. I know there is a way to get from the install process on the cd, to the system on the hd, but when I went looking I could'nt find it.
Stupid question but when installing Arch as a single system, I created a boot partition. When dual booting is the partition still created, or does Grub get installed in the MBR of the windows system? I had a Arch dual boot before, don't remember what I did. Thanks for the reply-- Larry

Snowman · 2005-03-09 23:01:16

lmellen wrote:

I have the installation cd. I know there is a way to get from the install process on the cd, to the system on the hd, but when I went looking I could'nt find it.

I haven't used the CD but when you boot from the floppy you get to a prompt. Enter:

arch root=/dev/discs/discX/partY

where /dev/discs/discX/partY is your / partition. From there it should boot the system.

skoal · 2005-03-09 23:30:43

1. Don't erase anything, you can recover both.
2. You just need to put grub back on your MBR, and then you can load XP and anything else...

Does the grub menu come up at all with the error?

If so, hit 'c' to bring up the command prompt.

If not, if you are presented with just the grub command line:

Type:

root (hd0,<hit tab>

fill in the partition where your /boot is located for Arch (or even Gentoo's /boot if you used grub there). And, then close it with a parenthesis, for example:

root (hd0,hd0)

Then:

setup (hd0)

exit Grub with "quit" or ESC.

Reboot. That should get you into the Grub menu at least. Hit 'e' to edit the `/boot/grub/menu.lst` on the partition where you specified the "root" command above. There are several posts in these forums how to successfully load XP plus many other distro(s). I would probably just edit one for now (like Arch) and get that working. Then you can fix the others from within Arch.

If you can't load any other Linux distro, then just reinstall a "base" only Arch system on one of your vacant partitions or overwrite the one you already had for Arch. Get that working, then you can load Arch from grub and fix the loading of the others.

* You do not need to erase any of the other non-Arch partitions. By re-installing Grub to your MBR, you don't need "ntloader". Grub will take care of you. Just make sure when you re-install Arch that you choose the very top "disc" entry to install Grub (in the MBR). Basically, it should be the very top one listed, not ending in something like "partX". I think it will just say something like "/dev/discs/disc0"...

lmellen · 2005-03-09 23:56:16

skoal I get:

Booting 'Windows Xp'

root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
chainloader +1

GRUB Loading stage2..

GRUB loading, please weight...
Error 18

Arch is OK, did I destroy Xp messing around??-- Thanks for the reply--Larry :?

joe · 2005-03-10 07:43:38

Which version of GRUB are you using? I had a similar experience while using .95. Nothing I did wanted to boot XP. GRUB .94 and .96 worked fine, however...

skoal · 2005-03-10 08:36:49

oops. I think I misunderstood your original problem. It seems like grub is recognizing your NTFS partition, 0x7, correctly.

Does your "Windows XP" entry look something like this:

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

If so, I'm out of ideas. I thought you were just having a Grub MBR problem.

Error 18? That's indicative of having your /boot on a partition past 8GB. It changed from error 17.

Can you post your `/boot/grub/menu.lst` (just the loadable OS parts), and the information from this:

fdisk -l

That's the letter L (lower case).

If you've done all this before and feel it's not a grub config/setup issue, you might want to follow joe's recommendation first. `grub --version` will tell you...

lmellen · 2005-03-10 23:37:40

skoal, Here it is: (I had to type it in , I'm on another machine)

Disk /dev/hda: 40.9 GB, 40982151168 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4892 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 2491 20008926 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 2492 2615 996030 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda3 2616 4982 19012927+ 83 Linux

My grub is Ver. 0.94, I'm using widget as the install disc, and my Grub menu.lst looks like yours. Arch boots fine, No Xwindows yet, I wanted to make sure Xp was ok first.
If I tried to install grub into the wrong partition and thereby borking that partition, would I get a Error 18 message? I still think I screwed something up during the install, it had been to long since I did it before. I probably messed up a Xp partition, and now I'm getting error 18 messages. I'll probably have to format and start over, but I'll wait until I hear from you. Thanks for the reply--Larry

skoal · 2005-03-11 00:56:50

lmellen wrote:

If I tried to install grub into the wrong partition and thereby borking that partition, would I get a Error 18 message? Thanks for the reply--Larry

* I'm no grub expert, and to be honest, I don't know what happens when you "install" Grub's MBR to a partition like "/dev/hda1" (not /dev/hda like I did when I had XP on first partition (/dev/hda1)). I don't know what that would do to existing partition info on your NTFS, nor do I know how to recover that information (if even necessary). Maybe that error 18 is related to that scenario, still an improperly setup grub, or a BIOS issue.

The Arch grub "setup" (or "install") sets up some pointers to locating the "stage1" and "stage2" files, and just writes your MBR there. That's all it does. It's equivalent to "setup (hdx)" in Grub command line terminology. When you edit your "grub.conf" in the Arch install, you tell where the MBR finds it's stage1/2 files with the "root (hdx,hdx)" entry in `menu.lst`, direclty equivalent to "root (hdx,hdx)" in Grub command line terminology.

Do you get a Grub menu or command line at least? And Which is it?

The only thing I can suggest is (in this order):

1. If just a command line is presented, type "root (hd0, hd2)" and then "setup (hd0)". That should get you a properly working grub for your setup. If you do get the menu instead, hit 'c' and enter the same information, followed by ESC or 'quit'.

2. I've heard some people changing from "Auto" or "LBA" (logical block addressing) to "normal" or "User Type HDD" (and entering HD info there) with some success in cases similiar to yours. Why? I don't have a clue.

3. Get network installed in Arch, and pacman -Sy grub to newest version. I'm on 0.96.

4. If that doesn't work, it may be BIOS related. It seems you have a 20/1/20 partitioning scheme -> NTFS/swap/Linux. I know people have gotten grub to succesfully load with a similiar setup before. If that fails, the only option I can think of is re-installing Arch and re-partitioning it as such:

20 GB (NTFS - unchanged)
50 MB (Linux /boot)
1 GB (Linux swap)
Remainder (Linux /)

* And don't use any "extended" partitions. You only have 4 so they should all be "primary" partitions.

Then, during Arch install, install Grub to "/dev/hda" (not hda1, hda2, etc.) -> Use the top one on the list.

Then, edit your "grub.conf" to:

# NTFS
...

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux  [/boot/vmlinuz26]
root   (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/discs/disc0/part4 ro

5. Forget about Arch for the time being, and reinstall the MBR with the NTFS bootloader, using Win XP recovery disk I guess (it's been a while and I don't know which Windows tool to use to do that). See if you can atleast recover your XP partition that way.

* If none of those work, I just don't know what else to recommend. I thought at one time you had XP and Linux successfully installed on another system. If so, I would use that as a guideline to troubleshoot your current problem.

lmellen · 2005-03-11 01:46:31

skoal -- I'm starting over, I want to see what happens with a clean HD, new Xp and then a correct install with Arch. I have a very nice Arch setup on a t-23, so Arch is there when I want it. I'll keep this link open and then let everybody know what happens. Thanks for the replies -- Larry

skoal · 2005-03-11 04:29:18

Thanks for your reply. Please do post back with your experiences. I'm sorry to hear you couldn't salvage your XP partition. I've been in your situation before and just started from a "clean slate" like yourself after spending too much time on it.

If you ever figure out what it was, let me know. It's good information to have in case me or someone else ever has a similiar problem. Also, I searched all over the net trying to figure it out as well, but couldn't come up with anything myself.

Good Luck.

lmellen · 2005-03-12 01:43:21

skoal - I was curious, I realized I still had active on the Xp system:
#1 Norton Antivirus
#2 SpyBot
#3 Web Root Spy Sweeper
# 4 Ad-Subtract
Web Root has various active shields which may have interfered with Grub, as do the other programs.
I'll reinstall again Sat. nite -- Again Thanks for the replys - Larry

skoal · 2005-03-12 02:54:41

I read somewhere that whatever that BIOS boot protection option is (S.M.A.R.T.) (?) can interfere. I forgot what it's called but people have turned it off in such cases. I never use it so I wouldn't know. I don't know how OS virus stuff would interfere unless you rebooted into that OS and it would restore something.

iphitus · 2005-03-12 03:02:04

Dont ever use the XP disc management tools. They are what broke it. They partition in a non standard way.

If you wish to partition in windows for linux go buy partiiton magic. The windows tools wont work.

Snowman · 2005-03-12 03:45:31

I have Partition Magic 7 but it's a crappy program. I bought it to resize my ntfs partition. It can do that but whenever I try to do somthing else, like moving a ext3 partition, it fails.

Arch Linux

#1 2005-03-09 21:23:29

Just BORKED a dual boot

#2 2005-03-09 22:00:29

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#3 2005-03-09 22:43:17

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#4 2005-03-09 23:01:16

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#5 2005-03-09 23:30:43

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#6 2005-03-09 23:56:16

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#7 2005-03-10 07:43:38

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#8 2005-03-10 08:36:49

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#9 2005-03-10 23:37:40

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#10 2005-03-11 00:56:50

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#11 2005-03-11 01:46:31

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#12 2005-03-11 04:29:18

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#13 2005-03-12 01:43:21

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#14 2005-03-12 02:54:41

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#15 2005-03-12 03:02:04

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

#16 2005-03-12 03:45:31

Re: Just BORKED a dual boot

Board footer