Win XP not found when installing Mint

[tobodestroyer]

Hi,

I'm trying to create a dual boot WinXP and Mint10 system. I have three physical hard drives connected via SATA to motherboard.

HD 1 - WinXP 32bit Home Edition is installed and boots just fine.

HD 2 - This is where I want to install Mint10. However, when I try to install it, when I get to the Partitioning stage of the process, when I select the option to install it alongside other operating systems, the WinXP installation is not found. No NTFS partition is found. HD 1 is described as Unallocated.

HD 3 - My Documents

I've installed Mint10 onto HD 2 but the only way I can get the computer to boot into it is by using Hiren's boot Disc and selecting the MBR on HD 2.

What changes do I have to do to make WinXP discoverable? I'd like to install Lilo or Grub but I fear that they too would not see HD 1.

Help

[Elisa]

Did u try to run in terminal this?

sudo update-grub

and/or

sudo grub-install

[tobodestroyer]

I tried sudo update-grub but it still doesn't see the XP installation.

install-grub looks complicated... yikes! I'm a relative Nooby

[ds2992]

reinstalling grub is acctually easy. i had the same problem as you installing mint debian as well as ubuntu. just follow the instructions here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Creat ... terInstall for some reason the initial install of mint seems to mess the MBR. reinstallin g grub has fixed it everytime for me.

[AlbertP]

Grub has to be put in the MBR of the primary master harddisk (which will be 1), to be booted if there are other disks inside. Now that you've already installed it on the MBR of disk 2, you can change the master/slave jumpers in your computer's inside to make 2 the master: and then you can boot Grub.
It's really confusing: the Grub install location is, where to put the Grub MBR. This should be on the primary master disk to be able to load Grub.
It does NOT point to the location where Grub's files are installed. That location is on the Mint disk by default, if you don't setup a /boot partition (you don't need to change this).

[tobodestroyer]

No joy, I'm afraid. I had to reformat all hard disks and start again with a clean install of XP. Not a bad thing as it was in need of a serious spring clean.

Disk 1 - XP
Disk 2 - Mint
Disk 3 - Documents

Another feather in the cap for Linux; it took only 30 minutes to be a functioning operating system with all drivers and hardware installed to my liking.
I'm still fiddling, tweaking and downloading stuff for XP four days later. Grrr.

I'm loving the taste of mint.

[wayne128]

I'm still fiddling, tweaking and downloading stuff for XP four days later. Grrr.

I'm loving the taste of mint.

Well , 4 days...am I reading it correctly?

anyway, once you have XP running well, you should consider clone your many days of work.
Clone it at another internal drive, or external drive.
Next time it will be easier..

[Elisa]

As for cloning Win XP I had good experiences with Norton Ghost where you can set even to boot menu that your Win should be restored (no need first to boot to win), it was cool tool

[lauren]

Hi!

select the option to install it alongside other operating systems

That's no good idea, especially with 3 hds.
Please post the output of

Code: Select all

sudo parted -l print

lowercase "L" like list
and

Code: Select all

sudo fdisk -l