can't boot Mint or XP, fdisk-l below

[alanmzifa]

Hi, installed Mint 5. Previously had Mint 4 dual boot with XP off separate drives. Ran into problems when upgraded.

Can't boot directly into either now. Error, 17 or error 13.
Set up is Mint on an IDE drive, XP on a SATA drive. I had this set up so that if Mint drive failed all I'd have to do was unplug it and work using the XP drive.

fdisk-l reports....

mint@mint ~ $ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 61.4 GB, 61492838400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7476 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00bd00bd

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 7165 57552831 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 7166 7476 2498107+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 7166 7476 2498076 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x65a5c086

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 38913 312568641 7 HPFS/NTFS

I've tried fixmbr with the windows XP disc to see if that could salvage the XP install and I'd really not like to have to build that up again even though most backed up. Fixmbr didn't work. Mint was a fresh install so no problem over writing that if necessary.

Can someone translate fdisk above and suggest some steps? Thanks.

[67GTA]

I would try reinstalling grub. Boot a live CD. Open a terminal and run

Code: Select all

sudo grub

This will drop you into a grub prompt. Run these two commands one at a time.

Code: Select all

root (hd0,0)

Code: Select all

setup (hd0)

[alanmzifa]

Thanks for the reply!

While I was waiting for someone to offer advice I downloaded supergrubdisk and fiddled.

Here's where I am now.

When my IDE drive (Mint) is unplugged I get error 21 and can't boot. The disks were set up to boot IDE (Mint) then SATA (XP).
The bios said "veryfying DMI pool data" and halted.

When I replugged the IDE (Mint) and selected SATA drive (XP) to boot first GRUB loaded and gave me the Mint and XP options, either of which I can boot into.

Does this mean (and apologies for any stupidity from here on) that GRUB is on the SATA drive and had overwritten XP's MBR ?

I'd like each drive to boot without the other connected (as was the case originally) but also to boot when both are plugged in.
Does this make sense and can you understand from the above (and let me know) where GRUB and MBR are?

thanks

Do you need fdisk -l again or menu.lst?

I don't want to try what you suggested until someone has reviewed what I've posted above.

thanks

[Nessa]

It looks like GRUB is in your SATA drive. I too have chosen to keep everything that's microsoft in a separate hard drive that is able to boot by itself. Given the situtation, I'd remove the IDE drive and make sure that the XP drive works properly. In the XP Recovery console, use "FIXMBR" and "FIXBOOT". Get XP working first. Once that's done, connect IDE drive and run "root (hd0,0)" and "setup (hd0)" in the Grub prompt.

[alanmzifa]

Nessa, thanks for the reply.

I got it sorted out yesterday and think I stumbled upon a solution along the lines of what you'd suggested.

I'm dual booting but from 2 separate drives, Mint 5 on the IDE and XP on the SATA.

I was getting errors for both Oses and it wouldn't boot to either. Fixmbr from XP's recovery console wouldn't fix the MBR. Oh, irony!
I found a piece of software online that would from http://www.dtidata.com. It correctly identified the SATA drive as a bootable drive so I unflagged and reflagged it as I suspected that's where one error was. SATA then booted XP but ignored the IDE drive so I knew MBR was fixed.
I re-installed Mint on the IDE but manually set sda rather than any specific partition of the IDE drive for placement of GRUB through the advanced settings button. sda is the IDe drive and was set to boot before the SATA, sdb.

So far, so good. No initrms error etc. Even got Photoshop CS2 installed via Wine this afternoon. if only I could do the same for the Palm Desktop software....

[jhouse59]

I would try reinstalling grub. Boot a live CD. Open a terminal and run

Code: Select all

sudo grub

This will drop you into a grub prompt. Run these two commands one at a time.

Code: Select all

root (hd0,0)

Code: Select all

setup (hd0)

I'm having a problem getting Elyssa to boot. I can get Windows to boot.I tried what 67GTA suggested.But, I get this:

grub> root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7

grub> setup (hd0)

Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition

I hope someone can tell me what to do.

[rbanavara]

jhouse59, (hd0,0) stands for first partition on the first HDD. and from the o/p (0x7, which is NTFS) its your windows drive. First you have to find the partition on which you have linux installed. Assuming you have it on first HDD 2nd partition (/dev/sda2), the the commmand would be

root (hd0,1)
setup (hd0)

If you can paste the o/p of fdisk -l from your system, it would help to frame the exact command.