[patrikspongh40]

I really don't mean to be a pain, but I'm not sure I'm in the right place. So @ the grub menu this is what I see: Freespire 1.0.13, Diagnostics, Redetect Advanced Menu. If I go to any of the first three, I boot into freespire, Adavanced menu gives me: Main Menu, No Hardware Detection , This menu is on partition hdc1 or it could be( l ) looks like a 1 to me though. If I go to the main menu it brings me back, if I go to this menu is on partition hdc1 I boot into freespire. I haven't tryed( No hardware detection )because I am not comfortable with it. As far as the commands I'm just not sure we're on the right page here, I'm in a little over my head.

[patrikspongh40]

Also in the advanced menu it says at the bottom: use the up and down keys, you know the arrow keys, to select which entry is highlighted, Press enter to boot the selected OS. I wish windows was in there but I just don't see it.

[saikee]

Look, the reason I advised to use "fdisk -l" is because it lists all the partitions in every hard you have in the PC.

In booting the boot loader boots to a partition.

You are not helping yourself by not showing the details of your hard disk partitioning scheme.

OK let's do it the hard way.

Freespire uses Grub and I have just tried with my older version that you can press "c" key to get a Grub prompt. You can then talk to Grub directly before any operating system is loaded.

You can ask Grub to do its equivalent "fdisk -l" in Linux (Grub has not loaded Freesoire yet at this stage") by command

geometry (hd0)

Grub counts from zero so (hd0) means the 1st hard disk

In the display you will see various partitions with type ID at the end. Since WIn2k uses ntfs partition it will have Type ID 0x7. If you are still sticking with fat32 the Type ID will be 0xc. Write down this partition number. My guess is it should be partition 0 or the 1st one.

You can then demand Grub to boot up this Win2k partition with command

root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

The first line tells Grub the root of the operating system is the the 1st partition of the 1st disk or (hd0,0). If your Win2k shows up in different partition adjust the partition number, after hd0, accordingly.

Just in case you make a mess in a Grub prompt, bear the following in mind

help ---> shows what command you can use in a Grub prompt
halt ---> to switch the PC off
reboot ---> to reboot the PC
chainloader (hd0)+1
boot --->these two line give you back the original Grub screen.

Lastly let me tell you a secret. There is no PC operating system that cannot be booted by a Grub prompt. So learn it and kiss all your booting problems good bye!

[patrikspongh40]

I tried it this morning reall quick and I seem to be having problems with the command: chainloader +1. I'm not sure if it's a 1 or an l, but I tryed both. I am going to give it another try. I'll let you know, thanks so much!

[patrikspongh40]

So I gave it another try, still having trouble with chainloader +1 command. It says: invalid or unsupported executable format.

[saikee]

The error message is consistent with Grub not able to find a boot loader in the partition specified in the root statement.

A Windoze system "always" has a boot loader installed in its boot sector. If Grub can't find it then you have told Grub to search the wrong partition.

In chainloading Grub does not boot the operating system. Grub simply "invits" the boot loader of the system to be boot to take over the PC so that Grub can finish its work and go home.

[patrikspongh40]

So what do I do now?

[saikee]

Show us the output of "fdisk -l" or "geometry (hd0)". Preferably both.

[patrikspongh40]

The output of fdisk -l is when I put in the command the command window disappears then nothing. I think I told you that, but I'm not sure so sorry if I didn't. The output of geometry (hd0) is: drive 0x80: C/H/S= 1023/240/63 the number of sectors=19925880, LBA partition num: 0

[saikee]

I have explained in Post #15 that you need root privilege to operate system-related command.

If you haven't set up a root user password try this line first before doing "fdisk -l"

sudo su

Your "geometry (hd0)" shows no partition. Did you issue it before booting the Freespire or after? If you issue it before booting Freespire it will show all partitions. After booting Freespire and without root privilege it may show no partition. After booting Freespire but with "sudo su" issued first it will show all the partitions.

[patrikspongh40]

Yes I issued the "geometry (hd0) before booting into freespire. So while in freespire I put in the command: sudo su, then fdisk -l. Still nothing. The thing is though when I reboot right before I see the grub menu, there is a black and white menu that flashes up there just for a second. It says " hidden". Now what is that?

[saikee]

You can list here the content of the file /boot/grub/menu.lst from Freespire, say by terminal command

cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

You can edit /boot/grub/menu.lst to disable the hidden menu but putting a "#" at the begining of the line.

To give you flexibility and endless time to choose booting alternative put a "#" in front of the timeout statement too.

I had tested my Freespire with "sudo su" and then "fdisk -l" to make sure it reponds as expected before I posted in my previous thread.

Once inside Freespire, the prompt will change slight after "sudo su" signifying you are in root. As such you can activate a Grub shell bu command

grub

The "geometry (hd0)" can be issued from a Grub shell too. To get out of a Grub shell just type "quit".

[patrikspongh40]

I kind of got lost, I think I was in the wrong place with the commands so here's the output of fdisk -l: Disk /dev/hdc 10.2 GB 10202050560 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1317 cylinders Units= Cylinders of 15120* 512=7741440 bytes
Device Boot start end blocks Id system

/dev/hdcl * 1 1317 9956488+ 83 Linux

[patrikspongh40]

In refernce to post #15:

[patrikspongh40]

In reference to post 15: The output of /boot/grub/menu.lst is: permission denied. How do I find the root password???