[linuxownz]

I already posted this on the Windows XP branch but It involves a lot of both Windows and XP so I'm posting it here to incase anyone here can help.




This is a pretty big problem and I need to resolve it as soon as possible.
To start I downloaded Unbuntu 7.10 with my harddrive already on my main drive.
My Main drive with XP has about 250GB and im using about 51% of that.
Last night I took my Unbuntu 7.10 I already burned onto a disk and put it in the DVD drive. It wasen't working and sounded like it wanted to format my drive to install, I did not want that so I quit. I knew I wanted to do a duel boot so I worked at partitioning my drive finally got a clean 10GB partition and didnt give it a letter just kept the new space I took from my main drive as unlocated space.
I go back to Dual Boot Unbunu put on the disk got to the drive part and saw my clean cut partition so imade 550MB of it as swap and the rest and the storage for my Linux install. It went find everything Installed great.
I restart my computer a couple minutes later and tried to start XP and it gives me this "A disk drive error has ocourred press "ctrl" "alt" "del" to restart.
Seeing that scarred me so I restart and choose Unbuntu this time because during the installation I choose to bring 3 XP accounts to linux so I looked and most of the files I asked to bring over was nowhere to be found. So I re-tried to get into XP same error message.
Forward to this morning and I put in my knoppix live CD POST finds it and I look around and very luckily all my files on the Main drive are perfectly unharmed.
I tried little things and nothing works. I'v tried to put in a Windows XP installation disk and got the same error message as when I try to run the already installed XP on my computer. I found the error message on the windows site and got a Hot Fix on it that they warned me had'nt been tested much but doesnt matter cause didn't do anything exept when I put in my XP installation disk it atualy reads that. No same luck with the XP already installed.

Heres things to consider before you reply.
1. I havent backed up in years I'm a cheap person who wont buy a external drive. I also want to backup about 100GB of data so a CD wont work.
2.Microsoft wont help me for free unless I give them a PID(Prouduct ID) and I can't because I dont have it written down anywhere and the only way I can get on is with this Knoppix live CD.
3. Number two ties into three please dont give me any directions that I will need XP for (Like how I could find my PID in control panel if XP was working.)
4. Unbuntu is dead unused space so please keep in mind that the only operation system working is a live Knoppix 4.0 CD.
5. My Windows XP I had on fine before this happened was XP media edition SP2.

Thank you in advance!!!
Sorry for my horrible spelling in the post.

[saikee]

I think you can read all your Windows files in Ubuntu. You just didn't know how. Ubuntu doesn't allow a root login to the GUI but if you change to a root user in terminal by

sudo su

you can see all the XP files.

In Linux every file has an ownership. In the name of security Ubuntu treats you as a normal user, knows the XP files belong to another user (possibly Admin) and denies you even from looking at them. Changing to a root user entitles you to become the Admin and so free access to all Windows files.

You should do a backup with an external USB disk now.

Your partitions are safe because standard Ubuntu does not permit you to write on NTFS partitions. You need to load ntfs-3g program before you can change or write a ntfs partition.

Depending how you have arranged Grub in Ubuntu, normally if you get a Grub prompt by hitting the "c" key then you can boot up your XP manually. The instructions in Grub prompt is

geometry (hd0)

locate the first partition that has type 7 as it is a ntfs partition most likely your XP system partition. Take note of the partition number which always starts from 0. Say this partition is 0 then xp can be fired up by commnads

root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

The first line tells Grub the root partition you want to boot is the 1st partition in the 1st disk, as Grub counts from 0. The (hd0,0) is just an example. Adjust to suit your case. (hd0) means the 1st disk. The second line tells Grub to surrender the control to the XP's boot loader and that is all. Grub will passes the control over and buggers off.

If you want to boot XP without Ubuntu you can always retore XP's MBR back by booting up a Dos floppy or the FreeDos to do a "fdisk /mbr" or just get a win2k or any other XP installation CD to "fixmbr". More details in the last link in my signature.

I don't call this a problem, let alone a big one. Just a few basic knowledge of the two systems.

[Arcadion]

To get Windows XP to work again, boot off your XP CD to a recovery console (press "r" for "repair" the first time it prompts you), it will ask you to type in your Administrator password, just press enter if you don't have one. This should bring you to a DOS prompt. Type "fixmbr" and hit enter, then "fixboot c:" and hit enter (ignore the warnings it gives you). This will remove GRUB and return your computer to booting into Windows XP. If XP still won't boot, you may need to change the active partition back to your C: drive, I think there's another recovery console command that does that but I don't remember it offhand.

[linuxownz]

I went into recovery mode and typed in the password. Then typed in "fixmbr" then enter then "fixboot c:" it still gives me the same error message.....