"GRUB_" Ubuntu Boot Error

geeksquad1516 said:
Addendum:

If I wanted to install Ubuntu using that first method on its own HD, how would I go along doing that?
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Good idea. :smile: That's probably your best option. Well, I think what you would need to do to pull this off successfully, is create (with the Ubuntu installer) two partitions (the first one would need to be fairly small, something like 1 GB) not including your swap partition (so I guess actually three partitions). The first partition (which will be small compared to your root partition) is where Grub (the main part of it) should go, because it is the first partition, which should happen if you let it do the default, which is install Grub to the MBR of that drive (note that when you install Ubuntu, you would need to have the Ubuntu drive first in the boot sequence in the BIOS). And just specify root / as being the second partition. The swap partition can go after the other two partitions.

So your partition setup should be like this:

1. boot partition-approx. 1 GB ext3 partition for Grub
2. root partition-whatever size you want the root partition to be
3. swap-a swap partition (pick a size)

Once you do that, you should be able to change the boot sequence in the BIOS, and boot your other (Windows) drive first, and then EasyBCD to add a Ubuntu entry to your Windows boot menu, which should work this time. Note though, in EasyBCD's "Device" drop-down menu, under the Linux tab in the Add/Remove Entries section, you will need to point it at the first partition (i.e. the boot partition) of your Linux drive, and remember to check the box called "Grub isn't installed to the MBR/bootsector".
 
I'm moving my Windows XP and 7 partitions the the back of the HD as we speak.

Addendum:

I'll update this post when I;m done
 
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geeksquad1516 said:
I'm moving my Windows XP and 7 partitions the the back of the HD as we speak.

Addendum:

I'll update this post when I;m done
Click to expand...

geeksquad1516 said:
I had to move my partitions back to the front because I had some trouble with XP's boot.ini and getting XP to boot.
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Just a question, but why are you moving your XP and Win 7 partitions around in the first place...? :S I thought you said you were going to put Ubuntu on an external HDD. So what need is there to mess around with the partitions on the internal HDD?

And anyway, its usually just a matter of changing the partition( ) (and/or the rdisk( )) values in the entry(ies) in your boot.ini file, to get XP to boot if the location in the MBR partition table's slots was changed, when you moved the XP partition.

I really think you should keep to the first idea (i.e. install Ubuntu to its own HDD), and not screw around with the partitions on your main HDD at all, unless you really need to. :wink:

Just follow the advice in my last post, and you should soon have a working triboot.
 
I'll start a new thread to solve my XP problem, and then resurrect this one.

Addendum:

Sorry, I meant to test this method using my spare HD. I am always mobile and don't want to use an external hard drive. I wanted to move the XP and Win 7 partitions to the back of the drive and put Ubuntu up front. When I tested putting Ubuntu as the fist partition on my spare HD, it worked like a charm. The spare HD is and always was for testing.

BTW, I changed all of my drive letters in the boot.ini, but I still got a "Windows could not start" error.
 
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No, best to keep the same issue in one thread if possible...
No sense in having the information relating to one user's problem scattered all over the forums, is there? :wink:
Like I said, your boot.ini is the culprit, and if you change the partition( ) value in both the default entry, and the entry beneath [operating systems] in your boot.ini file to the right partition, your problem should be solved. If you did more that, you may need to verify that all three XP boot files (i.e. boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com) are in the root of the "system" "active" partition, as seen from Disk Management in Win 7.

Addendum:

geeksquad1516 said:
Addendum:

Sorry, I meant to test this method using my spare HD. I am always mobile and don't want to use an external hard drive. I wanted to move the XP and Win 7 partitions to the back of the drive and put Ubuntu up front. When I tested putting Ubuntu as the fist partition on my spare HD, it worked like a charm. The spare HD is and always was for testing.

BTW, I changed all of my drive letters in the boot.ini, but I still got a "Windows could not start" error.
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Ok, thanks for explaining your problem a bit more effectively...
So, since you already have solved your Ubuntu problem, and your only issue is XP is not booting, then it should be solved easily enough... :smile:
(EDIT: Nevermind, I mis-read...I see now you said you installed Ubuntu on the first partition of the spare HDD, which I gather is not what you want to use long-term)
There are no drive letters in your boot.ini file (at least not as part of the actual *code* which makes XP boot or not boot). Though CG designed his auto-configurator boot.ini to create drive letters in the description (i.e. the names) of the boot entries, that has no bearing at all on whether XP boots or not. It is merely so the user can tell which partition it is that the entry is pointed at (though the drive letter in the boot.ini would be an accurate guide only if its being viewed from the same OS that it was originally created in, as the drive letters are specific to the booted system)
Mind explaining your booting problem a little more in detail? :wink:
For instance, where exactly do you get this "Windows could not start" error? After you select the XP entry in the Win 7 boot menu? Is it a BSOD?
 
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I went from:
-45 GB Primary NTFS (Windows 7 RC)
-230 GB Primary NTFS (Windows XP)
-45 GB Extended
-----41 GB Logical EXT3 (Ubuntu 8.10 /)
-----4 GB Logical SWAP
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To:
-45 GB Extended Partition (Not numbered in XP)
------41 GB Logical ext3 Partition (Partition 1 in XP) = Ubuntu
------4 GB Logical linux-swap Partition (Partition 2 in XP) = SWAP
-45 GB Primary ntfs Partition (Drive 3 in XP) = Win 7
-230 GB Primary ntfs Partition (Partition 4 in XP) = XP
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I still had NTDETECT and ntdlr in my active root windows 7 partition, and I edited all of the "Partition(2)" in the boot.ini to "Partition(4)", but it gave me an error after I chose the XP option from the Windows Boot Manager (so after boot.ini was activated). It gave the error:
Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.
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I also added six other entries in the boot.ini for all the partitions; Partitions 1 and 2 did nothing (they were blank ext3) and three and four gave the above error.
 
I auto-configured it (when I added the boot entry in EasyBCD) but that just takes the boot settings from the boot.ini on your XP drive; so it still would say Partition(2) instead of Partition(4).

Addendum:

But I wouldn't know, because I moved my WinXP and 7 partitions to where they originally were.
 
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The auto-configurator doesn't take settings from any boot.ini.
It locates the correct partition numbers for any XP it finds and it creates a new boot.ini in the correct ("system") partition.
boot.ini is the configuration file for NT systems (backward compatible to earlier Windows)
You don't put entries in it for your other partitions.
W7 (or grub) will chain NTLDR for your XP and NTLDR will read boot.ini. All it needs to find in there is the information pertaining to XP.
NTLDR isn't being used to boot anything else, W7's BCD is doing that job.
 
It obviously doesn't work, either EasyBCD didn't count my ext3 partitions or NTDLR doesn't include them in the count, because it read "Partition(2)" when it clearly was "Partition(4)"
 
You can't go by where the partition appears to be in the picture that disk management gives you.
The partitions are numbered in the order they appear in the partition table (generally, the order they were created in - though not necessarily if you've been doing a lot of deleting, resizing and reallocating).
The order on the disk is only the same if you created them in that order and you haven't changed anything since.
That's precisely why the auto-configurator was included, because neither you nor we can tell just by looking, what the correct values in boot.ini should be.
The advice in the sticky before EasyBCD 2.0 existed, used to be "try every permutation till you find the right values". There was no other way of telling.
 
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