Triple Boot Vista, XP Pro SP2, Ubuntu Ibex

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I have on one 500GB HDD split 50/50 with XP PRO and OTHER half Vista Ultimate SP1 this is the master HDD cable select... On The Slave Drive I have a 80GB HDD with a 73GB Ext3 and theres a small partion for the swap on the remainder of that HDD.

At First I had UBUNTU hardy there and used easy BCD to create the entry on the Vista BCD menu and on choosing that as if by miracle there I was booting into Hardy no problems ever.

Enter the beta of the upcomming Intrepid Ibex class 8.10 full clean install removed all bcd entried that where previously formed all traces of anything related to easy BCD completly... the best way to do this was to Craet a System Image with Acronis True image Pre Hardy Install in first place... all was stable and all returned to exactly were I left it minus some anivirus/firewall updates and a couple of programs like cccleaner and FlashFXP.

I went through exactly same process as I did with hardy however heres what happens when I click on the UBUNTU entry on the Vista BCD menu..

Displays grub version for dos some memory values and some other unimportant stuff and alts booting at a GRUB> prompt. never boots to IBEX.
Boots fine to both XP pro and Vista...

If I swich the drives around on bios boot sequece the slave as First bootable drive and Master as secondary I can Boot fine to IBEX but on the GRUB there are no signs of Vista Or XP...

I swaped cable around made the slave drive master and re-installed everything otherway around.... I've even tried just using the menu.lst to only find errors.

Some UBUNTU GUYS are ademant that Im wrong and easyBCD is crap and that Im going around it the wrong way bla bla bla... They insist that the IBEX grub is exaclty the same which I know it behaves way differently from Hardy same or not... Im more enclined to maybe some change, incomatibility or maybe even user error but after two days of wrestling with this I now decided to leave it up to the PROS to suggest something.

Ive tried reesitalling the GRUB from live CD and Ive tried the super Grub CD with no more encouranging results...

I know Im mad so help me out here I recon IBEX is playing hard to get...

Ive tried many things so before I make a massive post all I have to say is that having restored Hardy to the the second IDE drive as it was before it works a charm...
 
Remove the Ubuntu entry and then re add it with checking the box for GRUB not be loaded to the MBR.
 
Right I went back to IBEX again...

kairozamorro said:
Copy/Paste the details of your bcd from debug (detailed) mode from EasyBCD.
Click to expand...

Well I did it in both ways the suggested way by selecting the HDD where the GRUB is installed which doesn't work for IBEX or HARDY. I include Screenshots as well.

Code: 
[B]WIth Partition where Grub is installed[/B]
Windows Boot Manager 
-------------------- 
identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795} 
device                  partition=D: 
description             Windows Boot Manager 
locale                  en-US 
inherit                 {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e} 
default                 {a2ca9105-6713-11dd-962b-0030bdb93fde} 
displayorder            {c80b99a0-6616-11dd-a53d-c089ab090912} 
                        {a2ca90f9-6713-11dd-962b-0030bdb93fde} 
                        {a2ca9105-6713-11dd-962b-0030bdb93fde} 
toolsdisplayorder       {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d} 
timeout                 20 
 
Windows Boot Loader 
------------------- 
identifier              {c80b99a0-6616-11dd-a53d-c089ab090912} 
device                  partition=C: 
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe 
description             Microsoft Windows Vista 
locale                  en-US 
inherit                 {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7} 
bootdebug               No 
osdevice                partition=C: 
systemroot              \Windows 
resumeobject            {c80b99a1-6616-11dd-a53d-c089ab090912} 
nx                      AlwaysOn 
pae                     ForceDisable 
sos                     No 
debug                   No 
 
Real-mode Boot Sector 
--------------------- 
identifier              {a2ca90f9-6713-11dd-962b-0030bdb93fde} 
device                  partition=D: 
path                    \NTLDR 
description             Windowns XP PRO SP2 
 
Real-mode Boot Sector 
--------------------- 
identifier              {a2ca9105-6713-11dd-962b-0030bdb93fde} 
device                  partition=D: 
path                    \NST\nst_grub.mbr 
description             IBEX
Like I said that does not work with either don't know why and to be honest after all the time and head banging I don't care. Well I do but I had enough... :wink:

onpartitionfw3.png


I had tried same method with Hardy to no result but I did say I had Hardy working which is where I am now back to and posting this after yet agin being unable to on the 1000000 millionth run on this.

Makaveli213 said:
Remove the Ubuntu entry and then re add it with checking the box for GRUB not be loaded to the MBR.
Click to expand...

Well When I said I tried just about everything that included this suggestion but agin just for the fun of wasting time I thought hell why not... :ldown:

Code: 
[B]With selection Grub Not Installed to Bootsector [/B]

Windows Boot Manager 
-------------------- 
identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795} 
device                  partition=D: 
description             Windows Boot Manager 
locale                  en-US 
inherit                 {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e} 
default                 {c80b99a0-6616-11dd-a53d-c089ab090912} 
displayorder            {c80b99a0-6616-11dd-a53d-c089ab090912} 
                        {a2ca90f9-6713-11dd-962b-0030bdb93fde} 
                        {a2ca9104-6713-11dd-962b-0030bdb93fde} 
toolsdisplayorder       {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d} 
timeout                 20 
 
Windows Boot Loader 
------------------- 
identifier              {c80b99a0-6616-11dd-a53d-c089ab090912} 
device                  partition=C: 
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe 
description             Microsoft Windows Vista 
locale                  en-US 
inherit                 {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7} 
bootdebug               No 
osdevice                partition=C: 
systemroot              \Windows 
resumeobject            {c80b99a1-6616-11dd-a53d-c089ab090912} 
nx                      AlwaysOn 
pae                     ForceDisable 
sos                     No 
debug                   No 
 
Real-mode Boot Sector 
--------------------- 
identifier              {a2ca90f9-6713-11dd-962b-0030bdb93fde} 
device                  partition=D: 
path                    \NTLDR 
description             Windowns XP PRO SP2 
 
Real-mode Boot Sector 
--------------------- 
identifier              {a2ca9104-6713-11dd-962b-0030bdb93fde} 
device                  partition=D: 
path                    \NST\NeoGrub.mbr 
description             IBEX
Well this method Works a treat for Hardy 100% on the money and the GRUB is the same version on Both IBEX and HARDY however when you boot one and the other there are a few differences. Like IBEX does not display the Kernel Version Menu or recovery or memtest or anything just goes straight in to Boot splash with the progress bar.

offpartitionsm7.png


I have screenshots of the DOS error messages but somehow I dont think they are relevant. if they are Ill post them just ask.

I dont know much about anything and since this has been moved from the bug area I suppose your able to reproduce the issue and I went wrong somewhere please show me the way Im blind and started seeing red by now...:tongueout:oint:

If anyone wants to give my set up a run and try to boot Triple Boot IBEX please I havent tried dual booting I can only go quad booting but thats just boring.:brows:
 
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The problem is that hte Drive function is letting you select where the IBEX drive is to get it booting right. I see it is greyed out. Which means that no matter what you try you wont get it working right. You will have to use the LiveCD to boot into IBEX again. There get the information from the GRUB. After that go back in to Vista and edit the menu.lst manually to add IBEX.

Either there is something amiss with EasyBCD on your system or IBEX is not fully functional as a multiboot OS yet. Not to mention there is rumors of it causing hardware failure.
 
Makaveli213 said:
The problem is that hte Drive function is letting you select where the IBEX drive is to get it booting right. I see it is greyed out.
Click to expand...

The first Screenshot is the recommended method of adding Linux entry there is no greyed out anything I can see

The second screenshot the drive selection is greyed out automatically as soon as you select [V] Grub is not installed to bootsector

Needless to say that it is default behaiviour nothing odd about that as I see it.

The way I understand what easybcd does is to enter the Linus entry onto the Vista bootmenu which in turn should be a shortcut like to the GRUB in this case, this is not working rather clearly when you have a perfectly good Linux install that boots perfectly ok.

Also as I see it easy BCD is not reading the GRUB information contained in the linux boot partition. Though adding the option for it to [V] Grub is not installed to bootsector does kinda work. but spews out a whole load of processing data...

Realistically since both Hardy which is a stable UBUNTU release and IBEX Have the same GRUB version and IBEX which is not very far off at all less then 20 days for a full stable release (please rumours what else next the wicked witch of the North) Theres always some chance any beta sofwtare specially a OS is gonna be slightly unstable hardly anything at this stage, but having run it on its own on various machines I never had any issue in fact it supports the most hardware ever...

Going back to the point which TBH easyBCD is missed a beat I would consider this a bug but the powers that be over here clearly not interested. Sorry I have wasted your time I will do the Job manually by editing Vista BCD via cmd/bcdedit /? for all the goodness you can do.

Like I said sorry to have bothered you all...
 
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XP's entry needs to point to C: just like Vista's. Make sure ntdetect.com, ntldr, and boot.ini are at the root of Vista's partition. Find out which partition has /NST/NeoGrub.mbr and point Ubuntu's entry there.
 
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Guru will have to answer then. I have not tried IBEX. Last time i tried a Beta of Ubuntu my partition tables got messed up.

Guru will know what to do. He will see your entries and let you know what to do to fix it via EasyBCD.
 
I have gone back to Hardy but I have done the wole work to the vista boot menu manually without having easybcd (NST/neogrub.mbr etc...) all over Vista/Xp partitions I have a fully working triple booting system but even manually I cant get IBEX to boot without errors but it boot fine on it own. if I make the slave drive a primary boot drive in Bios.

But if this Guru wants to know Primary Hdd 500gb is split into 2 with Vista and Xp Pro SP2 the Slave HDD 80GB is Linux with a 5GB partition for the linux swap rest is for Ubuntu.

Honestly this easybcd is not a bad tool and for free well what can I say, but it does need some polishing up I I were I coder I would help out but Im not... Thanks for your replies and I hope that the information provided comes to help the future of easybcd.
 
The people at Ubuntu are right, to the best of my knowledge, Ibex's bootloader is identical to Hardy's.

Now the fact that Ibex will boot when you change the boot order means that - regardless of what else you might suspect - GRUB was installed to the Master Boot Record and not the Bootsector. EasyBCD can't touch the MBR due to the way operating systems are designed - you must have GRUB installed to the bootsector.

So long as Ibex isn't writing to the bootsector, EasyBCD can't communicate with its bootloader.

Now the second method of booting Ubuntu via the "GRUB is not installed" option relies on EasyBCD being able to find a file called /boot/grub/menu.lst.

With some distributions (such as Fedora), there is an option to use a software LVM partition - in essence, a fake RAID that requires special drivers to read. Other distros use encryption to protect their filesystems from being read. Still others use a filesystem other than the ones EasyBCD supports (ReiserFS and extfs on Linux, FAT and NTFS on Windows).

If both of these methods fail due to missing requirements, EasyBCD can't help.

I would say that you didn't install Ibex correctly, except for the fact that you obviously got Hardy working with EasyBCD just fine. In this case, I would suspect that the Ibex installer is for some reason not writing to the partition's bootsector; therefore the problem lies in Ubuntu's playing field.

I have PC-BSD 7 and the latest Ubuntu Ibex builds on my desktop needing to be tested for compatibility - both have had reports of it not working under certain circumstances. I only have so many hours in the day (which unfortunately has only 24 very, very short hours), so I'll get around to doing that when I can.

No bug reports go unseen, they're all flagged internally and are a large part of the reason EasyBCD 2.0 isn't out yet - we don't release crappy software, nothing goes out until we're sure all problems we know about have been addressed.
 
Hi and thank you for your reply.

I have installed UBUNTU correctly and the grub was installed to bootsector not MBR.

I apprecciate that you dont release crap sofware in fact if any of my comments may have indicated any such claims I assure you that was not the intention.

Having said that I made observations made on my experience with Hardy I didnt mention previous Linux installs because theyr were irrelevant and I find it curious that IBEX has such a bad reaction to the easybcd method hence my comments which I had hoped to be of some use but if not please disregard them.

Thank you very much again for your reply and taking time out to do so I have taken a manual approach to the problem which seems so far no issues, in my experience it may be some slight modification in the boot method which has indeed occured even though the GRUB version is the same. Maybe changes to minimize UBUNTU boot time have now conflicted or ocurr faster Im no expert either way all I know is what I see and Im no coder...

I have recomended your tool to many of my customers and will continue to do so as well will be trying newer versions jsut because Im curious and like to see what my softwares of choice improve on and offer in difference.

Last but not least besides going mad on manual your is the best program for the job of massive multiple booting for the incredible price of nothing...

So long for now
 
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