Problem Dual Booting Vista & Ubuntu 8.10 with 2 Drives

Just a thought Andy and Cool.
The BIOS for my ASUS mobo has 2 sections for the HDDs
One shows how they are connected (the order of the port connections), the other defines which order they take in the boot sequence. If you manipulated the order in the first, but not the second, I'm not sure it would affect where Grub got installed.
 
My Asus is the same as yours, Terry,

Seems no matter what I do though, Windows sees IDE first then SATA. Though I haven't a clue as to what it'll do to Ubuntu though.
 
Terry60 said:
Just a thought Andy and Cool.
The BIOS for my ASUS mobo has 2 sections for the HDDs
One shows how they are connected (the order of the port connections), the other defines which order they take in the boot sequence. If you manipulated the order in the first, but not the second, I'm not sure it would affect where Grub got installed.
Click to expand...

Good point. Yes, the order of the port connections might affect the boot off of an external disk...which might have been partly his issue, since he switched ports that last time. I don't believe my BIOS is like that though. If I recall correctly, there is only the drive order, and not an order of the ports as well. I have the Dell Studio 1535 laptop, which is a fairly recent breed of laptop, and the BIOS itself on mine should be fairly new.

-Coolname007
 
Yep. I was right. I just looked at my BIOS, and there is no option in mine to change the port order...however, there is something called "USB Emulation", under "POST Behavior", which when set to "Off" does not allow booting from external devices. So, I would suggest, Andy-min, to check your BIOS, and see if yours is set to "Off" or "Enable". If its the former, then you will need to enable it.

-Coolname007

Addendum:

Computer Guru said:
the methodology behind laptop motherboards is rather different than PC motherboards.
Click to expand...

No doubt. :smile: But he didn't clarify (I don't think) whether it was a desktop or laptop he's using...:wink:

-Coolname007
 
Last edited:
Desktop...

I have a Dell desktop :smile: both SATA internal hard drives.
Thanks for the flurry of activity on the subject.:wink:
I will check out the USB settings in my BIOS.
Check in later...:booyah:
 
andy-min said:
Hi Coolname007,

I added a linux option, chose Grub, Selected the partition0 on disk 1 where Ubuntu is and did not check the box "GRUB isn't installed...". It gives me the error "cannot boot from hard disk" at the boot menu.
Click to expand...

hmm...I guess I missed that comment before. You need to create a new entry in EasyBCD for Ubuntu, this time making sure to select the box titled "Grub isn't installed to the bootsector". I think your problem is you're trying to use the method that uses Bootpart, which normally requires the XP boot files on the Vista root in order to use it properly from Vista. And since you're trying to dual boot Vista and Ubuntu, you obviously wouldn't have those files anywhere on your hard drive. :smile: So please try it again, this time selecting that box titled "Grub isn't installed to the bootsector" under the Linux tab in EasyBCD.

Also, it wouldn't hurt to post your NeoGrub menu.lst again, so we can take a look at it, and make sure its still configured correctly.

Cheers.

-Coolname007
 
Cool, EasyBCD doesn't require any XP files whatsoever for the linux entry to work. The normal Linux option should work just fine.
 
EasyBCD isn't just a frontend for a bunch of programs - it has 14,000 lines of code that do some really cool and unique stuff. I didn't write those just for the heck of it, ya know :wink:
 
Computer Guru said:
EasyBCD isn't just a frontend for a bunch of programs - it has 14,000 lines of code that do some really cool and unique stuff. I didn't write those just for the heck of it, ya know :wink:
Click to expand...

Ok...so now I'm interested. :smile: How exactly does EasyBCD use Bootpart, which requires a boot.ini file, without needing the boot.ini file?! :lol:

Perhaps that's part of the reason the auto-config for Linux, which uses Bootpart, in EasyBCD doesn't work for me then (though the manual method with Bootpart works fine) if you went away from the standard method...:wink:

-Coolname007
 
EasyBCD only uses bootpart to do a little tiny bit of the work. It does the rest in the code.

It doesn't really matter - I've found a number of bugs in bootpart, and EasyBCD 2.0 won't be using it anymore.
 
The decision was made a long time ago. Just because the beta builds I've made public don't have a particular feature that doesn't mean it isn't under development and testing elsewhere :wink:
 
Computer Guru said:
The decision was made a long time ago. Just because the beta builds I've made public don't have a particular feature that doesn't mean it isn't under development and testing elsewhere :wink:
Click to expand...

I see...but you still haven't answered my question about what kind of bugs Bootpart has. :smile:

-Coolname007
 
Its probably still in the beta build cool because CGs still probably drinking pepsi late nights to write additional code to make up for the stuff bootpart provided in previous builds :happy:

As far as bootpart bugs go, you'd need to get nitty gritty with the stuff day to day to find them.
 
Funny thing I have the same problem and it is not your BIOS.
I have several SATA drives.
drive one Vista
drive two XP (well used to be)
drive three ubuntu
drive four backups
drive five Video
Up to last friday I had all three booting via EASYBCD no problem
grub would launch and I could even relaunch windows from grub.

I then tried to reinstall ubuntu using 8.10 because I wanted to try a new Sound card driver from scratch (turned out the problem was creative not knowing or correctly identifieying their new card small rewrite of code required) anyway I forgot for a moment when installing grub the correct drive letter and pointed it towards the XP partition grub installer barfed red screen warning and then asked me for a drive to install grub again. told it hd2,0 well
it finished and when I rebooted vista came up GRUB,GRUB,GRUB,ETC...
XP partition was gone as wiped and trying to boot ubuntu gave me a grub prompt.

I installed grub from live CD ubuntu now boots. if Vista drive is moved further back in boot order.
XP well It was backup last week so I recreated partition and formated (haven't installed yet waiting for problems to go away). Vista required DVD and then some to recover MBR and boot.
Now trying easyBCD windows works but linux doesn't boot it gets to grub and hangs.
Now it was working just fine day's ago now it won't work and easyBCD seems to be acting weird. Easybcd listed my Linux drive which is both mounted and set to boot third as hd0 and my raid drives before my vista boot which is SATA 1 it shows as hd5. not good so I think something in bootrec is scambled or feeding stuff to easybcd making it malfunction.

Now trying to boot into linux I get partition can't be found
Grub now doesn't boot vista. I am thinking of punting and wiping all and reinstalling from scratch. unless a solution is found.
But since all was working with the same setup and same hardware in the same positions I am confused as to why now the malfunction. Either a new grub is included with 8.10 thats incompatible with EasyBcd or what I think something is screwy with Vista and easybcd can't fix or understand.

Kgrach
 
Back
Top