[fuzexi]

Hi,
(have checked for similar posts - the nearest one is with Ubuntu. I'm using Mint. Apologise if this is the same thing...)

I have had a dual boot on an Acer laptop since Christmas, and the default is linux Mint, with the other option being XP home edition. The grub screen gives me options to boot Linux or XP, but then as Linux updated itself, it slowly moved the XP option down the list, and now it is bumped off it completely. I am at a loss! I have tried pressing escape, or page down, and all the things I can find. XP is not on the options anywhere I can see. I really would like to get it back as I use Audition to edit my work, which is only on XP.

Can you tell me what I can do to regain the option to use XP?

Thank you so much.

Peter

[saikee]

Post the output of

fdisk -l

in Mint and we can tell you how to get it back.

In fact all you need to know is where Xp is residing. You can do it at Grub booting screen by pressing "esc" to opt for the text mode.

In text mode you press "c" to drop into a Grub prompt. In a Grub prompt you have Grub standing in front of you awaiting your instruction.

This command instructs Grub displaying the partitions of the 1st hard disk (hd0), assuming you have only one

geometry (hd0)

Xp is always housed in NTFS partition with an ID 7, most probably in the 1st partition known to Grub as (hd0,0). If this is the case these commands in Grub will fire it up

root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

Once you manage you boot Xp "manually" just add the instructions to /boot/grub/menu.lst but plus an extra line, starting with "title", at the front to tell yourself what the booting choice is, samething like

title dude in the Internet says my Xp is in (hd0,0)

Anything after the word "title" will be displayed on screen by Grub.

[fuzexi]

I just tried it in Terminal...(whatever that is):

peter@peter-laptop ~ $ fdisk -l
Cannot open /dev/sda
peter@peter-laptop ~ $

Don't know if Terminal is the place to do it?

Sorry, I really am unfamiliar with Linux!

[saikee]

You need to get root privilege first (equvalent to Admin right in Windoze). Try this

sudo su

and then the other commands.

When it comes to booting you can't click your way out because a boot loader is a very small program. To support graphic and all types of video cards is out of its scope so you need to talk to it in terminal mode.

"fdisk -l" is a terminal command in Linux. Grub is one of the many programs Linux has. It is used before a Linux is loaded.

[fuzexi]

ok, that looked more promising...

peter-laptop peter # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x87f3cddc

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1275 10240000 27 Unknown
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 1276 10366 73023457+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3 10367 19458 73019392 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda5 1276 5099 30716248+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 5100 6923 14651248+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 6924 7047 995998+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8 7048 10366 26659836 83 Linux

[saikee]

I believe you first partition, marked with a * meaning it is bootable to Windoze, boots up Xp.

Xp should fire up if these lines are edited into the /boot/grub/menu.lst

title dude in the Internet says my Xp is in (hd0,0)
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

You can still try to boot Xp manually as a I have showed you before. Remember the booting must be done before Mint is loaded. In other word you interrupt Grub and change it into a Grub prompt. You then type the command line by line to fire up Xp.

/boot/grub/menu.lst or the file menu.lst in Mint's subdirectory /boot/grub is a script file containing instructions to instruct Grub how to the boot operating systems. Grub is happy to talk to you in a command prompt which I call Grub prompt. It is similiar to the command prompt in Xp.

[fuzexi]

Ok thanks so much...
I am going to fwd my brother this conversation, and then get him to talk me through it on the phone....
I'll let you know if we are successful!

Best,

Peter

ps: could you suggest something I could do to stop XP getting bumped off the boot list again?

[saikee]

I don't think the XP booting instruction has been bumped off. It is mostly likely that you or the package manager migh have configured it incorrectly. Grub can take over 100 booting choices. A few would not make it sweat.

[CouchMaster]

My XP went off of the grub boot menu also, after many Ubuntu updates, but the down arrow key brings it back.

[fuzexi]

Nah, I tried the arrow key, and also the page down key. Didn't help. But I think heard a tiny "mwuhahaha!" coming from the Linux

[saikee]

fuzexi,

OK I am taking you by the hand.

When you see the Grub boot screen you press the "esc" key before Linux Mint is booted up. You will see the following message

You are leaving the graphical boot menu and starting the text mode interface

two boxes of "OK" and "cancel" are available for selection. Click "OK" and you will get the same screen but in the text mode.

In text mode if you press the "c" key Grub will remove the boot screen and communicating with you directly. This is a Grub prompt because you will see a line on the screen "Grub>" following by a blinking cursor. Now you are in business because Grub is saluting to you think there is something big for it to do.

You want to tell Grub the root partition you want to boot is the 1st partition of the 1st hard disk because Grub count everything from zero so the instruction is

root (hd0,0)

You now instruct Grub how to boot Xp and that is by command

chainloader +1

literally telling Grub that it has no more use to you so it might as well cut its bottom off and paste its upper part to the +1 position of the root partition specified previously.

At this point Grub is still undecided if you really mean what you said. So you have to give Grub the green light to go ahead by typing (and press return afterward)

boot

The result is Grub will load the XP boot loader, pass over the control to Xp and bugger off.

Once you have successfully booted up XP manually you should go out to buy yourself a drink because you and Grub working together can now boot any installed PC system in the world. You should be able to feel the power of Linux because you now a master with a slave called Grub. If you decide that your fingers can wear out quickly if you have to type the instructions every time to tell Grub then you can put the instructions on a file and ask Grub to read it itself. You do this by editing a file called menu.lst in the subdirectory /boot/grub in Linux Mint.

To Linux Mint you are playing with fire when working on a system file so root privilege is demanded but you can declare yourself as a Superuser. Also Linux Mint may prevent you from using the desktop as a Linux admin is supposed to be skillful with a terminal and able to use an editor. An easy editor that you can use in Mint is nano. So you can edit the menu.lst with these instructions in a Linux Mint terminal (you need to boot up Linux Mint and select a terminal mode)

sudo su
nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

Inside the menu.lst you add these lines at the bottom
code]title dude in the Internet says my Xp is in (hd0,0)
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot[/code]
After saving the file Xp will be bootable as a choice in the Grub screen after a reboot.

[fuzexi]

Thanks Saikee,

Ok I will do it tomorrow. At least I'll try - this week is really packed. But I'll let you know as soon as I have done it. I'll print this out and give it a go. V. much appreciate the time you have put into helping me here!

Thanks for doing the post in such detail. I really needed that!

Peter

[EAFiedler]

Thread reopened per request.

[fuzexi]

First of all, apologies to Saikee, I haven't had much time to spend trying to fix the problem until about a week or so ago, I followed the instructions, but although Windows starts up, it then tries to fix itself, although it isn't actually broken.
I am really at a loss here, wanted to just wipe the computer clean and install XP, but even that is getting complicated now with about 5 partitions, and it asking me which one to use... how do I know?

Nightmare... hate Linux, hate Windows, hate Macs too.
The BBC micro had a good system....