Boot XP, Vista & Ubuntu

I have XP and Ubuntu working just fine..an extra step, when I hit Ubuntu, Grub then loads and I have to load Ubuntu. Not a big problem, it works at least.

My problem is Vista as the the 2nd partition. Every time I boot with it I get errors in Vista because it can 'see' the XP partition. If I move the Vista partition to another drive it works fine by itself.

Should I move Vista to the 1st partition? Or use grub instead of bcd? How can I get BCD to hide the XP partition? I tried the neogrub steps in another post and they don't help.

My current config is :

sda1 : Win XP
sda2: Vista
sda3: Ubuntu (without swap for a moment)

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Derek
 
My setup is exactly the same except mine is all on 1 drive. I dont see exactly what the issue is? Vista will always "see" XP no matter what you do. What is it you are exactly trying to accomplish? Moving Vista to the first partition will still allow Vista to "see" XP even if you put XP on another drive.

Are you trying to Hide XP from Vista? Is that what you are trying to do?
 
Hi Derek,

I can't add to what Mak said w/ regards to the Vista issue, but the Ubuntu one is easy:
Just open
Code:
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
and change the "timeout xxx" line to "timeout 0" to solve that particular issue :smile:
 
Awsome Mahmoud. Thanks.

I am trying to use both the Vista Ultimate and XP that came with my Thinkpad along with Ubuntu.

I have 2 hard drives. I started from scratch and I did a full reload of the Thinkpad's XP software then resized the partition to 10GB using Partition Commander. I then installed Ubuntu and it works great. I keep XP around for games, or at least trying to so I can give Ubuntu a real day to day test.

I then swapped hard drives and did a full Vista Ultimate reinstall using the Thinkpad's disks. I then shrunk the partition to 20 GB and it works fine. So I used Partition Commander to copy the partition to my disk with XP and Ubuntu leaving me with:

/dev/sda1 WinXP 10Gb
/dev/sda2 Ubuntu 10GB
/dev/sda3 Vista Ultimate 20GB (copied from another drive)

When I boot Vista I get prompted to search for files for Vista and I am assuming that its because XP is on SDA1 and Vista isn't. All I am trying to do is use the "default" software load provided by Lenovo instead of installing Vista and all of Lenovo's stuff by hand.

Thats my goal. Am I crazy for copying the partition?

Derek
 
The Vista partition needs to be th esame number as it was on the other drive... So you'd likely stick it as the first partition, then XP then Ubuntu.
 
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