Perplexing Problem

Questions about Grub, UEFI,the liveCD and the installer
Forum rules
Before you post read how to get help. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
Locked
terdon

Re: Perplexing Problem

Post by terdon »

My guess is that when you plug in your other hard drives, the drive assignments change. So what was /dev/sda1 may now be /dev/sdb1 or whatever. So GRUB can't find the root system. Can you post your /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst files here?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
terdon

Re: Perplexing Problem

Post by terdon »

Yes, menu.lst should be the only file you need to edit. As for adding windows, it should have been added automatically but if not just add these lines to your /boot/grub/menu.lst file:

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


That is assuming that your Windows installation is on the 1st partition of the 1st hard drive. It would be much easier to give you a definitive answer if you post your /etc/fstab and the relevant sections of the menu.lst files here.
terdon

Re: Perplexing Problem

Post by terdon »

OK, so your linux installation is on the first partition of the first disk. Where do you have your windows installed? Is it possible you have overwritten it?

By default windows installs on the 1st partition of the 1st hard drive (/dev/sda1 or hd0,0) which is where your linux is. It seems likely you have overwritten your windows installation.

Could you post the ouptput of

Code: Select all

sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
terdon

Re: Perplexing Problem

Post by terdon »

Well, something is wrong here... your menu.lst shows your root partition to be hda0,0 so sda1. But sda1 is an NTFS partition. Are the commands you posted run with all disks plugged in?
In any case, once you figure out which partition your windows drive is on, the lines I posted above (with the relevant partition if not hd0,0) should work.

So, if possible, boot into linux with ALL frived plugged in and then run

Code: Select all

blkid
that will give you a listing of all your aprtitions, their UUID and dev names as well as their file system. Post the output here and we should be able to add windows correctly.

Also check out this thread for more information.
terdon

Re: Perplexing Problem

Post by terdon »

It looks like your windows "C" drive is sda1 and you had another drive under windows called "Download1" which is sdb1. If that is so the following lines in your menu.lst should do the trick:

Code: Select all

title		Windows XP
rootnoverify	(hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader	+1
 
An easy way to check where your windows installation is would be to make a temp dir and mount the drive there:

Code: Select all

mkdir test
sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 test
ls test
This will mount /dev/sda1 on test and list its contents. Look for the windows dirs, like "Documents and Settings" or "Windows"
Then, to unmount:

Code: Select all

sudo umount test
emorrp1

Re: Perplexing Problem

Post by emorrp1 »

You guess correctly (starting from 0), hence explaining why windows won't start: You're trying to chainload it to the same partition as mint. Try rootnoverify (hd1,0) or rootnoverify (hd2,0). If it's still not working, post the contents of /boot/grub/device.map which shows the link between the (hdx) and /dev/sdx naming. Also you don't need more than one swap partition.
terdon

Re: Perplexing Problem

Post by terdon »

OK, we are now rapidly approaching the end of my expertise... Nevertheless, here goes.

As you said in the (x,y) line x=drive (starting at 0 NOT 1) and y=partition. So, it is strange that all your entries have (hd0,0) I would have thought you'd get an error booting into linux with that. From what I can understand of your setup, the linux entries should be (hd2,0). However, that shouldn't affect your windows and if it ain't broke...

Are you sure windows is on /dev/hda1? You have 2 NTFS partitions, could it be on the other one, Downloads1?

Oh, and yes the "~" means a backup file.
emorrp1

Re: Perplexing Problem

Post by emorrp1 »

Mike, please post contents of /boot/grub/device.map so we can see what it's meant to be. At the moment your menu.lst is trying to load everything off the first partition of the linux mint drive.
emorrp1

Re: Perplexing Problem

Post by emorrp1 »

well if that's the entirety of your device.map then I'm stumped, as it suggests it only detects a single hard-drive. You could try adding additional lines manually e.g. (hd1) /dev/sdc or something, other than that, I stick with trying (hd1,0) or (hd2,0) on the windows section until it boots.
Locked

Return to “Installation & Boot”