Multiboot with 2 HD ubuntu/ winXP/ Vista

S

squir

Member
I have 2 SATA 150GB HD. I divided them into partitions 40/40/10/30/30 and formatted to NTFS. I put WinXP on C on first HD with only first HD connected. Then disconnected HD and connected 2nd HD installing Vista enterprise on C. Next connected both HD and tried installing ubuntu 8.04. I had to install manually to get it to install on Disk 2 on last partition but instructed to put swap on first HD on partition with only 10GB. I requested ext 3 journaling file system and put mount point /

When it finished installing it notified “unable to install GRUB in (hd0). Executing grub-install (hd0) failed. This is a fatal error. Internal error. Failed to initialize HAL.” Now the swap partition is hidden.

Now it boots directly to winxp without asking.
1- Please tell me if there is a way to correct the GRUB and how to do it in detail.
2- If I must I will reinstall vista and try again with ubuntu but how can I get the swap partition back that it setup and hidden. Should I use partition magic to get back the hidden partition? How do I let GRUB install to MBR. Can I use something like Super GRUB? IllustratedDualBootSuperGrubDiskPage
3- Please be specific for a newbie.
Please help!

If I unhide the swap partition on the first HD (with winXP installed) how can I tell ubuntu to make a new swap partition on the HD that has ubuntu installed? Would it be better to just reformat the 2nd HD and start over? Can I just reformat the disk or do I need to uninstall ubuntu first? Could the swap partition being on the first HD cause the “fatal error. Internal error. Failed to initialize HAL”? Thanks for being patient.

 
I think the swap partition has to be on the same disk as the partition you're installing Ubuntu on. That is the only way for me so far that has worked. Since Ubuntu requires a swap partition, I would try to keep it on the same disk as Ubuntu is on, so that if one disk goes bad or is disconnected, you can still boot Ubuntu. It really doesn't make any sense to have pieces needed to boot an OS scattered across devices.

Go ahead and delete the Ubuntu and swap partitions, disconnect disk 1, repair the Vista bootloader from a Vista DVD using startup repair, reconnect, and re-install Ubuntu.
 
Thanks, I'm doing it tomorrow. I'll let you know how I do. The swap file on disk 1 (winXP) can I just use partition magic to unhide the partition and then just reformat it?

Addendum:

Also thanks for pointing me in the direction of the ubuntu documentation. For newbies sometimes just finding the documentation is important.
 
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