Mbr/grub

psd99

psd99

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Hi all,

I have XP on my first hard drive, I had linux installed on the second partition.

Unfortnetly when I installed Linux it installed GRUB (Grand unified boot loader) on to the XP drive.
I got rid of linux because of complications. I couldn't use the keyboard on the grub menu. I know very strange but it just wouldn't work.

So I sought to putting in my XP CD and trying fixmbr, restart the pc and bingo it's in.


I restarted the pc again and PROBLEM! It'll get to the black XP screen and just hang there. Won't move.
So put the recovery CD in again and this time fixboot.

It appears everytime I restart it'll hang on the black xp screen. The way around this is to go into recovery CD and type in fixboot.

I know the fool's way to sort this out is to reinstall but that'll take AGES! I got months of shortcuts and program files.

Well here is my boot.ini file:

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect


What do you all think?


p.s I got a 250 gb samsung hard drive partitioned three ways.

3 primary partitions.

The OS is installed on the first partiton if I was to delete/format the first partition to setup XP on it, will this also format or make inaccessible the other two partitions?
 
default boot ini from google:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

okay my boot ini:
[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

mmm what do you notice?

I used wordpad to edit my one last night if my computer gets restarted before I edit what I beleive to be wrong i'm done for!
 
Looks like you need to delete this from your boot ini " /noexecute=optin " , that should work . I always put Grub at the front of the partition where I install linux , as shown in my walkthroughs . Touch wood I haven't had any problems with it yet .
Best thing to do is make a copy of your clean XP install before playing with linux . Then make copies of your linux as you go along . This saves a lot of time and hair pulling .

nod.gif
 
hi will this do it:

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect


take a note of that windows

it comes up on pcr as window S

with a space inbetween the w and s?
mmmm
but no space is the right way ?
 
[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

That looks good to go .

happywave.gif
 
mmm even with the window S like that

surely one word right: WINDOWS
 
default boot ini from google:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

This is the information you gave . If you thought it was wrong why did you post it ?

I took some time and googled for info on your query and found this ,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTLDR

which gives this ,

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
the partition number in the above can be ignored , as it is only an example . Yours should probably have a " (1) " in place of the " (2) " .

You could probably wipe out the entire boot .ini and windows should still boot .

To load an NT-based OS, ntdetect.com must also be present. (Strictly speaking, only NTLDR is actually required. If boot.ini is missing, NTLDR will default to C:\Windows on the first partition of the first hard drive. Many desktops in the home are in this configuration and a missing boot.ini file will simply generate an error stating it is missing, then boot into Windows successfully.)

You may have another sort of glitch that may be connected to this ,

If an NT-based OS is selected, then NTLDR runs ntdetect.com, which gathers information about the computer's hardware. (If ntdetect hangs during hardware detection there is a debug version called ntdetect.chk which can be found on Microsoft support.[1])

:D
user.gif
 
Hang on there psd99 I just noticed that on the actual site I gave you get

"WINDOWS"


but for some reason when copying and pasting to here you get

"WINDOW S"

I recon you need

"WINDOWS"

I think that there is something nopt quite right here at the site .

:confused:
 
Abarbarian said:
Looks like you need to delete this from your boot ini " /noexecute=optin " , that should work . I always put Grub at the front of the partition where I install linux , as shown in my walkthroughs . Touch wood I haven't had any problems with it yet .
Best thing to do is make a copy of your clean XP install before playing with linux . Then make copies of your linux as you go along . This saves a lot of time and hair pulling .

nod.gif
Click to expand...

thanks all it looks good i've edited the file and restarted
so far so good

u got a link to walkthrough please?

last time I installed grub onto a totally seperate linux disk but sadly the xp boot option wouldn't work
I was trying to edit the file in linux to make xp load but I had to keep playing around with the bios to get into xp.

This time around I managed to install grub to the xp hard drive
i wont do that again
im in the stage of planning a big upgrade
damn these things take ages.
 
oh lovely that OS looks great

do you know if it is Debian or Redhat compliant?
 
Which one ???


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nod.gif
 
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