Dual Boot Problem

Belikeabox · 2011-07-20 20:55:14

I'm trying to dual boot widows xp and arch. I have everything setup except i cant get grub to start when i turn on the system. All it does is boot into xp. I've read the wiki and everything and it didn't help. Thanks

karol · 2011-07-20 21:09:11

Do you mean your grub automatically boots into Windows? Please post your menu.lst.

Also, post the output of 'fdisk -l'.

testdude281 · 2011-07-20 21:30:53

Assuming that GRUB hasnt been installed (or not properly), just try to reinstall grub. follow the directions in the wiki for grub installation. that usually fixes the problem.

Belikeabox · 2011-07-20 21:45:36

I followed the wiki and grub doesnt even pop up it just goes into windows.

MoonSwan · 2011-07-20 21:55:26

Are your hard drives in the proper order to boot, IE look in the bios for this because most these days allow you to set your hard drives up in different orders to boot. Can you hit a key to get a "bbs popup" list of the drives in your system and you can then pick one to boot off of?

testdude281 · 2011-07-20 22:18:30

i think you must have installed grub in your / partition (i am assuming that you dont have a seperate /boot partition) during setup. grub needs to be installed in the MBR of your primary hdd for the grub menu to come up. just reinstall grub but make sure you install it in the MBR this time.

Last edited by testdude281 (2011-07-20 22:19:41)

Belikeabox · 2011-07-20 22:32:25

I have it installed in /boot. If i install it to the mbr it corrupts windows xp.

testdude281 · 2011-07-20 22:39:27

How do you expect GRUB menu to come up if you dont install it in the MBR? if you are worried that you that you wont be able to boot into Xp after installing, you should know that you can boot into XP from grub.

Try this

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … _Dual_Boot

Last edited by testdude281 (2011-07-20 22:41:59)

Inxsible · 2011-07-20 22:40:43

well you have to add the entries for windows xp in the grub/menu.lst manually. What do you mean it corrupts windows xp?

Please provide complete information for people to help you. Otherwise this thread is just going to be a whole lot of posts achieving nothing really.

As a side note: Please read up on grub in the wiki to get some more insight.

Belikeabox · 2011-07-20 22:53:52

Yes i have added the entries in menu.lst. When i install it to the mbr windows wont ever start the screen just stays black. I'm trying to do the wiki way and copy the contents of /boot to my usb and then put it on my c drive and edit the boot.ini.

testdude281 · 2011-07-20 23:02:11

its much simpler to edit the XP entry in menu.lst so that it points to the correct partition after installing grub. but hey, you are the master of your machine.

Bye.

Last edited by testdude281 (2011-07-20 23:06:41)

Belikeabox · 2011-07-20 23:44:10

I installed grub to the mbr like you guys said and it fucked up. When i select windows xp in grub it just says loading stage 2 adn goes back to grub. I have my menu.lst all setup right also.

Inxsible · 2011-07-20 23:46:18

show us your menu.lst

and the output of

sudo fdisk -l

karol · 2011-07-20 23:47:24

Could you please post some info https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 57#p963357

Inxsible · 2011-07-20 23:48:06

karol wrote:

Could you please post some info https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 57#p963357

I hadn't noticed that you had asked the same thing before I did.

karol · 2011-07-20 23:51:50

Inxsible wrote:

karol wrote:
Could you please post some info https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 57#p963357
I hadn't noticed that you had asked the same thing before I did.

No big deal, it's not like OP saw it either ;P

rayjgu3 · 2011-07-21 01:28:09

Belikeabox wrote:

I installed grub to the mbr like you guys said and it fucked up. When i select windows xp in grub it just says loading stage 2 adn goes back to grub. I have my menu.lst all setup right also.

as stated please please display the out put of fdisk -l
that is at a command prompt as root type in fdisk -l it will display info like this

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63     2008124     1004031   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2         2008125    58428404    28210140   83  Linux
/dev/sda3        58428405    89915804    15743700   83  Linux
/dev/sda4        89915805   145211534    27647865    5  Extended
/dev/sda5        89915868   145211534    27647833+  83  Linux


   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1              63  3907024064  1953512001   83  Linux

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *          63    35407259    17703598+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc2        35407260    78172289    21382515   83  Linux

notice I have several drives only two have os's arch32-sata arch64-sata arch32-ide & xp-ide
on my system to boot off the ide drive I have to tell the bios to boot from it
on each drive it has its own grub & on each grub both say to boot arch it looks to /dev/sda2 you see when I tell my bios to boot the ide it then makes it the 1st drive. so in the initrd file I tell it to load modules for pata only this way arch sees it then as sda not sdc as it is label in my fdisk -l posted above
I hope you understood what all I put here. if your like I was when I first migrated to arch I said its english but it sure seemed a foreign language.
when/if you have multiple os's & partitions & drives it can be a pain
you say your following the wiki but are you absolutely positive xp is where you tell grub it is
cause if you tell grub xp is on sda1 & sda1 is a hidden partition that was setup at the factory & xp is actually on sda2 grub is not going to look at sda2 only at sda1 that you told grub xp is there
linux can be frustrating in the begining especially arch. I remember, but it has been a fun learning experience & still is.

Belikeabox · 2011-07-21 01:35:48

Ok im i just reinstalled windows xp and now im gunna reinstall arch. Should i install grub on the mbr or on /boot? Also when im setting up partitons should i set the windows partition to 'boot' or what?

Last edited by Belikeabox (2011-07-21 02:17:25)

Belikeabox · 2011-07-21 02:15:59

MoonSwan wrote:

Are your hard drives in the proper order to boot, IE look in the bios for this because most these days allow you to set your hard drives up in different orders to boot. Can you hit a key to get a "bbs popup" list of the drives in your system and you can then pick one to boot off of?

I'm using 1 hdd.

Hoonboof · 2011-07-21 14:48:17

What I would suggest you do is get windows installed first, then get arch installed, install grub to the MBR and boot into arch. Once you're in arch you can post your fdisk -l and your /boot/grub/menu.lst for us and we'll be able to take you through it step by step so that Windows will boot when you select it.

Inxsible · 2011-07-21 14:50:57

That's the 4th post asking the OP to post his menu.lst and fdisk output. However, the OP has chosen to ignore all previous requests.

@Belikeabox, If you need help, at least have the courtesy to provide information that is being asked of you. Failing that, I am going to close this thread because you are simply wasting everyone's time and plainly being a troll.

Belikeabox · 2011-07-22 00:14:28

fdisk -l results

Disk /dev/sda: 163.9 GB, 163928604672 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19929 cylinders, total 320173056 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000ca6e3

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 81915434 40957686 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 81915435 132921809 25503187+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 132921810 320159384 93618787+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 81915498 82108214 96358+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 82108278 130929749 24410736 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 130929813 132921809 995998+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 8032 MB, 8032092160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 976 cylinders, total 15687680 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0217934c

Menu.lst:
# (2) Windows
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Grub is installed on sda1 along with windows xp.

karol · 2011-07-22 00:26:56

Is it all you have in your menu.lst? If so, no wonder it boots straight into Xp.
The instructions from https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … _Dual_Boot may be read in a way that would suggest keeping just the Windows part. It should look more like https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Grub#Configuration but with the Windows part uncommented.

When pasting code on the forums, please use [ code ] tags https://bbs.archlinux.org/help.php#bbcode

Belikeabox · 2011-07-22 00:44:53

karol wrote:

Is it all you have in your menu.lst? If so, no wonder it boots straight into Xp.
The instructions from https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … _Dual_Boot may be read in a way that would suggest keeping just the Windows part. It should look more like https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Grub#Configuration but with the Windows part uncommented.

When pasting code on the forums, please use [ code ] tags https://bbs.archlinux.org/help.php#bbcode

No thats only the windows part. I did what hoonboof said. I'm in linux atm and it wont boot into windows. Thats why i posted that stuff. And my windows part looks exactly the same as the wiki says except for the title.

Last edited by Belikeabox (2011-07-22 00:46:20)

rayjgu3 · 2011-07-22 00:57:18

Belikeabox wrote:

Grub is installed on sda1 along with windows xp.

grub should be installed on sda not sda1

Arch Linux

#1 2011-07-20 20:55:14

Dual Boot Problem

#2 2011-07-20 21:09:11

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#3 2011-07-20 21:30:53

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#4 2011-07-20 21:45:36

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#5 2011-07-20 21:55:26

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#6 2011-07-20 22:18:30

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#7 2011-07-20 22:32:25

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#8 2011-07-20 22:39:27

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#9 2011-07-20 22:40:43

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#10 2011-07-20 22:53:52

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#11 2011-07-20 23:02:11

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#12 2011-07-20 23:44:10

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#13 2011-07-20 23:46:18

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#14 2011-07-20 23:47:24

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#15 2011-07-20 23:48:06

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#16 2011-07-20 23:51:50

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#17 2011-07-21 01:28:09

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#18 2011-07-21 01:35:48

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#19 2011-07-21 02:15:59

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#20 2011-07-21 14:48:17

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#21 2011-07-21 14:50:57

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#22 2011-07-22 00:14:28

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#23 2011-07-22 00:26:56

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#24 2011-07-22 00:44:53

Re: Dual Boot Problem

#25 2011-07-22 00:57:18

Re: Dual Boot Problem

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