Dual Boot trouble

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Faun

Faun

Wahahaha~!
Staff member
I told you a brief walkthrough, just see whats the problem.
Answer these question?
1) How many HDDs you have ?
2) Is there a HDD on IDE bus
3) How many SATA ports are connected to and to what Drives. In which order are they seen in BIOS ?
4) Does your Windows boot when you remove your Linux HDD ?
5) On what partition is Windows installed (see it in disk management in windows)

Provide the output of (remember to run the below command as root) :
fdisk -l
Click to expand...
paste the output here.
 
Rahim

Rahim

Married!
Plasma_Snake said:
Read my initial posts Rahimveron. T159 please help me out bro!
Click to expand...

Problem is you are not giving any clear info, yaar. Its too confusing and incomplete, even the info about hard drives is unclear.
Give some clear answers to T159 queries and you will get the help, brother

1: Open a Konsole and enter su and enter the root password.
2. Now enter fdisk -l and paste it in here.
3. Again sice you are at it, paste whats in /etc/fstab file, gedit /etc/fstab and remember the space after gedit
Click to expand...
Havent given the o/p of fdisk -l or /etc/fstab, then how can anybody help you?;)
 
OP
Plasma_Snake

Plasma_Snake

Indidiot
T159 said:
Answer these question?
1) How many HDDs you have ?
2) Is there a HDD on IDE bus
3) How many SATA ports are connected to and to what Drives. In which order are they seen in BIOS ?
4) Does your Windows boot when you remove your Linux HDD ?
5) On what partition is Windows installed (see it in disk management in windows)
Click to expand...
First of all check this pic:
*img374.imageshack.us/img374/1530/hddinfobu5.th.jpg

Now the answers

  1. 2 Hard drives. 400GB and 160 GB earlier was a typo error.Sorry
  2. No Hard drive connected to IDE port, all SATA but my motherboard's BIOS doesn't officially supports SATA so all SATA devices work in 'Enhanced PATA' mode. Anything connected to PATA port becomes Primary and Master.
  3. 4 SATA ports, a DVD Writer and the 2 HDD connected to each one. Their order in BIOS is as such;3rd IDE Master (My DVD Writer)
    3rd IDE Slave ( 160GB HDD with Linux on it)
    4th IDE Slave ( 400GB HDD with Windows on it)
  4. The boot options in my motherboard include only one HDD at any given time and whichever HDD I give as First HDD, its MBR is referred to in case of Bootup so to run Linux I've to manually change the HDD order as 160GB to first HDD and changes are automatically reflected in Boot Device Priority section. Thus even if I remove the 160GB HDD, which has Linux on it, and make 400GB as the first HDD, my system will boot into Windows.
  5. Well I think the image answers this question.
Hope this defogs the problem a bit...:oops:
 
Faun

Faun

Wahahaha~!
Staff member
after a blank line add this to the menu.lst, save and reboot.

title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root(hd1,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map(hd0)(hd1)
map(hd1)(hd0)
chainloader+1
Click to expand...

I hope this works :)
 
OP
Plasma_Snake

Plasma_Snake

Indidiot
I did what you told me to do and still get the same error of calling an Invalid device. Also you asked my device order at BIOS screen so here it is:

  1. Primary IDE Master - DVD Writer
  2. Primary IDE Slave - 160GB HDD
  3. Secondary IDE Master- Not Detected
  4. Secondary IDE Slave - 400GB HDD
Please help me out guys! :(
 
Rahim

Rahim

Married!
Plz read what is asked and arey bhai give the output of these commands: damn i am reapeating it again
1: Open a Konsole and enter su and enter the root password.
2. Now enter fdisk -l and paste it in here.
3. Again since you are at it, paste whats in /etc/fstab file, gedit /etc/fstab and remember the space after gedit
Click to expand...
This will give a clear idea to us.
 
Faun

Faun

Wahahaha~!
Staff member
Plasma_Snake said:
I did what you told me to do and still get the same error of calling an Invalid device. Also you asked my device order at BIOS screen so here it is:

  1. Primary IDE Master - DVD Writer
  2. Primary IDE Slave - 160GB HDD
  3. Secondary IDE Master- Not Detected
  4. Secondary IDE Slave - 400GB HDD
Please help me out guys! :(
Click to expand...
Ok add these entries after a blank line and if none of these entries works then its seems I cant help much :(. be quick buddy, you take a long time to reply :rolleyes:

title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root(hd1,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map(hd0)(hd1)
map(hd1)(hd0)
chainloader+1

title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root(hd2,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map(hd0)(hd2)
map(hd2)(hd0)
chainloader+1

title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root(hd3,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map(hd0)(hd3)
map(hd3)(hd0)
chainloader+1

title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root(hd4,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map(hd0)(hd4)
map(hd4)(hd0)
chainloader+1

title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root(hd5,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map(hd0)(hd5)
map(hd5)(hd0)
chainloader+1
Click to expand...

lolz
 
OP
Plasma_Snake

Plasma_Snake

Indidiot
Well all the code that T159 told me add in Menu.lst file didn't do Jack****. Here's the file below. Also the other file contains the result of fdisk -l command and then the contents of fstab file. You say Linux means learning so care to tell what is fdisk and fstab?
 
Flake

Flake

Linux User
Spaces are missing in a lot of lines. Copy exact code given below and take care of spaces. Proper spaces do matter a lot especially between chainloader and +1.

Code: 
title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1
 
OP
Plasma_Snake

Plasma_Snake

Indidiot
@ ghost at rest
Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You ! Thank You !
It worked! I copied your code, saved the file and re-booted the system and it worked.
Writing now from the same Windows that booted selecting ur option.
Now please tell me, What was the problem and how you solved it? :)
 
Flake

Flake

Linux User
There was no need to use makeactive and savedefault lines. It was just a space problem only. Linux is case and space sensitive.
Glad to help you ! :)
 
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