Help with XP Ububtu Dual boot

smg1965

New Member
I have an XP machine where I have partitioned the hard disk as so:
XP NTFS, Linux ext3, Linux swap disk, then there is unallocated space for a possible OSX

I installed Ubuntu as per these instructions
Ubuntu - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki on the ext3 partition

and have installed the Vista boot folder and configured EasyBCD as per these instructions
How to: Install the Vista Bootloader on Windows XP The NeoSmart Files

The problem is Easy BCD has made no difference and has no effect. There is no option to choose what to boot from and XP loads as normal.

Two things I have noticed are:

EasyBCD has re-created the Vista boot folder "C:/windows/boot" folder to "C:/boot" and updates this r-ecreated version! Is this correct??????

The "C:/boot.ini! file has had no changes made to it! Is this correct????

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
 
Hi Smg, welcome to NST.
EasyBCD is (in the main) a GUI for the BCDedit command line utility of Vista's BCD.
XP has no BCD, and is booted by NTLDR, which uses the boot.ini file.
The 2 things are quite separate.
If you own Vista, and dual-boot it with XP, it will intially boot using Vista's bootmgr, but a request for XP will cause bootmgr to chainload the NTLDR boot loader, and the XP boot will go ahead just like it would with no Vista.
EasyBCD really has no function in your situation.
You need to manipulate the boot.ini file manually with notepad or wordpad or any text editor of your choosing if you want NTLDR to control the boot, using something like this guide.
Or you can let Linux control the boot and use Grub to chainload NTLDR.
You'll find a lot of help in that regard at the Ubuntu forums.
 
Sure the XP boot files (ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini) are on the "system" partition as seen in Disk Management? :wink: If not, then you need to copy those 3 files to the root of the "system" partition, and then try using EasyBCD again, making sure to select XP in the drop-down and verifying that the entry is pointed at the "system" partition by going to the "View Settings" section of EasyBCD.

-Coolname007
 
Last edited:
Sorry Smg, I should have read more carefully.
Obviously you do own a Vista licence if you were able to follow the blog article.
If you follow those instructions, you'll end at the point where you have a BCD with one entry (for XP) and that's why you see no boot menu.
Now you've got the BCD booting XP for you, you must go back into the BCD and add an entry for your Linux system too if you want to see a boot menu.
The answer to your last 2 questions is yes, that's normal. (all the boot files are directly in the "system" root, and boot.ini is purely for XP and isn't altered by EasyBCD)
 
Last edited:
The answer to your last 2 questions is yes, that's normal. (all the boot files are directly in the "system" root, and boot.ini is purely for XP and isn't altered by EasyBCD)

Not exactly. Vista's BCD is in the /Boot folder of the "system" partition, and the "winload.exe" file is located at /Windows/System32. Unless of course you meant XP's boot files, in which case, then yes, the boot files (of XP) would indeed need to be directly in the "system" root.

-Coolname007
 
Don't be pedantic Cool.
By all the boot files, I meant bootmgr, the boot folder and 3 XP files.
I was distinguishing between the active copy of the boot folder which is in the root, and the source from which the repair is generated which lives in the windows folder, in answer to the specific question in post 1.
 
Don't be pedantic Cool.
By all the boot files, I meant bootmgr, the boot folder and 3 XP files.
I was distinguishing between the active copy of the boot folder which is in the root, and the source from which the repair is generated which lives in the windows folder, in answer to the specific question in post 1.

Thanks for clarifying that part...though it was still technically inaccurate, since the /Boot folder itself is not a boot file, though it contains a boot file, and so your point of it being in the root (that is, the Boot folder itself) was not a valid one, seeing as it is not actually a boot file itself. Who's being pedantic? I was merely pointing out the fact that two of Vista's boot files are not in the root of the "system" partition, though all 3 of XP's are. :smile: I guess some people can't stand being proved wrong.

-Coolname007
 
Last edited:
Cool, if you assume that the boot folder and all its contents are a package, then the do indeed lie in the root of the drive.

Being flexible and being wrong are two wholly different things :smile:


If you DO want to get really picky and pedantic - a directory is actually a file.
In the Windows API, a directory is created/referenced as a FILE with a flag indicating that this file reference has a property "directory" set to true.
 
Cool, if you assume that the boot folder and all its contents are a package, then the do indeed lie in the root of the drive.

Being flexible and being wrong are two wholly different things :smile:


If you DO want to get really picky and pedantic - a directory is actually a file.
In the Windows API, a directory is created/referenced as a FILE with a flag indicating that this file reference has a property "directory" set to true.

I'm not being picky or pedantic. :lol: And I never said a directory wasn't a file...I said it wasn't a boot file, and its not. The Boot folder itself is not used for booting, though the BCD file inside it is, and the folder itself, like you said, is used for reference for the system to locate the BCD file, which it then uses to boot.

Really, I don't know why we're going off the deep edge about this small matter. Its really not that big of a deal. :wink:

-Coolname007
 
Last edited:
Back
Top