[SOLVED] Help booting Windows 7?

[Anaxis]

Hey all,

Having a bit of a problem with Grub, mostly cos I have no idea how to use it. xD

Anyway, my results from fdisk -l:

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x97646c29

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 7832 62910508+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 7833 8615 6289447+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 8616 30807 178257240 5 Extended
/dev/sda4 30808 38914 65112064 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5 8616 30807 178257208+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda5 is a Windows 7 installation, although it' not showing up as such. I know Windows 7 has a boot manager in there, but when I added this entry to /boot/grub/menu.lst:

title Windows 7 [Build 7100]
root (hd0,4)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

It returns "Error 12: Invalid Device Requested."

Any idea what went wrong? Or am I just being a Grub newbie?

[Anaxis]

Hmm...after doing some review, I changed the grub menu.lst to:

Code: Select all

title		Windows 7 [Build 7100]
root		(hd0,4)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader	+1

Same issue, though, returns Error 12: Invalid Device Requested.

[Fred]

Anaxis,

You need to go back and check your partition table again. The partition table you are showing is an impossible situation.

Suggestion: Post a screen shot of the partition table taken from gparted partitioning program in the menu.

Fred

[Anaxis]

Here's the screenshot.

/dev/sda5, labelled Epic Fail Drive, is my data partition (although with all this reformatting, I left all my data [pictures, etc.]) on my iPod using the disk use function.

[Anaxis]

I don't think it worked, lemme try again.

[Anaxis]

Hmm, turns out I'm kinda slow when it comes to grub. xD

It occurred to me AFTER I posted that screenshot, that as /dev/sda5 (or rather, hd0,4) is my data partition, /dev/sda4 is my Windows 7 partition!

And thus, all that was needed was a simple change from (hd0,4) to (hd0,3).

And now I'm able to boot!

[Fred]

Anaxis,

OK... Glad you got it fixed. There is a very important point here. It looked as if you may have had 5 major partitions, which of course is impossible. Or possibly two logical partitions, in which case your numbering was wrong. So I was left wondering what exactly you had.

One rule to keep in mind. You can't boot Windows on a logical partition which follows a primary partition with grub. At least I have never been able to.

In your case your last partition, sda4 is a primary partition so you didn't run into that problem.

That is why I like a gparted screen shot. It shows the true physical location on the disk as opposed to a numerical order listing.

Fred

[Anaxis]

Aye, thanks for your help, at any rate. I probably wouldn't have actually looked at gparted had you not suggested I take a screenshot of it.

I don't know if the admins here close topics, but I'd consider it closed.

[Fred]

Anaxis,

You are quite welcome sir. One additional point I would like to make. I see in some of your other posts you are using sudo to open GUI programs, ie. sudo gedit ... . You shouldn't do this. When opening or running a GUI program you should use "gksu" for Gnome and "kdesu" for the KDE desktop. Example:

gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Using "sudo" with GUI programs runs the risk of breaking parts of your desktop. When you are running a CLI routine then use "sudo". Example:

sudo chown fred:fredgrp /home/fred

Fred

[Anaxis]

And see, being new to Linux, I had NO idea gksu even existed. Can you give me a brief rundown of the differences in superuser/ standard user/ intermediate commands and their actions?