Tripple booting with Vista, XP, Ubuntu on three separate drives

first thank you everyone for your help and support. After consulting with some colleagues who are experienced Ubuntu users, they were able to find the problem but no solution.

Apparently BIOS and GRUB see the boot order of my drives in a different way.

BIOS sees the order of the drives like this:
hd0 - xp
hd1 - vista
hd2 - ubuntu

GRUB sees it like this:
hd0 - xp
hd1 - ubuntu
hd2 - vista

so what my colleagues tried to do was to have GRUB reconfigured so that it would run from hd 1 and not hd 2 with the root and setup commands as well as other commands that they know. Unfortunately that did not work.

For some reason GRUB will not see hd 1 and hd2 properly and keeps trying to boot from hd2 even thought hd1 is the correct drive

So now the question is how do I do this? Answer unknown so I will take the advice of my colleagues and run ubuntu through virtual pc just to get through with my class.

If anyone has any idea on how to fix this please post a reply otherwise I thank everyone for their help
 
Post your revised menu.lst. If grub's configured to point at Ubuntus drives' mbr, but the mbr there is pointing to the other disk than that would explain it. Re-install grub to the mbr of Ubuntu's disk and try adding an entry again. Can you boot Ubuntu's drive by itself?
 
isg0nnarain said:
Answer unknown so I will take the advice of my colleagues and run ubuntu through virtual pc just to get through with my class.
Click to expand...

Yeah...I would suggest using Wubi, to start out with, when first trying out Ubuntu. :wink: It installs Ubuntu within the Vista (or XP) partition itself, within a "root.disk" file which contains the ext3 filesystem. And it automatically adds the entry to boot it in your Vista bootloader, so you wont have to...and then later, if you want to, you could always move your Wubi install to a real partition, using LVPM. :smile: That is exactly the same method that I used, and is how I now have a working Ubuntu installation on a real partition. :wink: And hopefully by then a solution to the problem you're having now will have presented itself...but at least in the meantime you'll be able to use Ubuntu! :brows:

Here's the website for Wubi: Wubi - Ubuntu Installer for Windows
And the Wubi forum: Wubi - Ubuntu Forums
And the website for LVPM: Lubi, LVPM, UNetbootin, and Bubakup - LVPM

GL and let us know how it goes. :smile:

-Coolname007
 
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kairozamorro said:
Post your revised menu.lst. If grub's configured to point at Ubuntus drives' mbr, but the mbr there is pointing to the other disk than that would explain it. Re-install grub to the mbr of Ubuntu's disk and try adding an entry again. Can you boot Ubuntu's drive by itself?
Click to expand...

no, no matter what I can never boot Ubuntu's drive by itself. Everything I have tried to do has been through the LiveCD. I would also like to mention that the version I am trying to install is 8.04 not 8.10. For some strange reason 8.10 will have ubuntu load and then a black screen will pop up that says an error has occurred. At this point I have grub to play with but nothing else. So 8.04 is the only version that I am able to install.
 
isg0nnarain said:
I would also like to mention that the version I am trying to install is 8.04 not 8.10. For some strange reason 8.10 will have ubuntu load and then a black screen will pop up that says an error has occurred. At this point I have grub to play with but nothing else. So 8.04 is the only version that I am able to install.
Click to expand...

hmm...sounds like an issue with your hardware. :wink: You might want to go ask about this problem over at the Ubuntu forums, that I gave the link to. They will probably be able to tell you why you can install 8.04, but not 8.10.

Hope this helps.

-Coolname007
 
thx for the wubi site and ubuntu forums link however wubi would not install ubuntu

as for the forums i have to wait I also posted a new thread to xoticpc.com forums since that is where i got my laptop

thx
 
kairozamorro said:
Probably disk 1 if he's in Vista since its on its own drive.
Click to expand...
That's the point I'm trying to ascertain Justin.
If the "system" partition (or more specifically the 1st HDD in the BIOS boot sequence) is not shown as disk 0 in Vista Disk management, then the dropdown menu in EasyBCD will be pointing you to the wrong disk and you'll need to use the workaround.
 
isg0nnarain said:
thx for the wubi site and ubuntu forums link however wubi would not install ubuntu
Click to expand...

Have you actually tried installing Wubi? It should work just fine...:wink: Here's the link to download Wubi 8.04: Download Wubi, Wubi 8.04 Download

-Coolname007

Addendum:

isg0nnarain said:
system is in disk 0

heres a screen shot
Click to expand...

Yeah...your Linux entry is definitely pointed at the "system" partition. :wink: As D:/ is XP, and also Disk 0, and it is pointed at D:/. :smile:

-Coolname007
 
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yea i did try wubi and it failed as well. I tried 8.10 wubi but in the end I get the same error message that i get from ubunbtu 8.10 iso (something bout IOAPIC)

and I tried wubi 8.04 and it will not complete the install

Addendum:

Coolname007 said:
Have you actually tried installing Wubi? It should work just fine...:wink: Here's the link to download Wubi 8.04: Download Wubi, Wubi 8.04 Download

-Coolname007

Addendum:



Yeah...your Linux entry is definitely pointed at the "system" partition. :wink: As D:/ is XP, and also Disk 0, and it is pointed at D:/. :smile:

-Coolname007
Click to expand...



how do I point it to F: ? I'm going to try the work around now but one my colleagues did something similar and it did not work. They also reinstalled grub but did not work either.
 
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isg0nnarain said:
yea i did try wubi and it failed as well. I tried 8.10 wubi but in the end I get the same error message that i get from ubunbtu 8.10 iso (something bout IOAPIC)

and I tried wubi 8.04 and it will not complete the install
Click to expand...
Could you please be more clear on what happened when attempting to install Wubi 8.04? Such as...what kind of errors you're getting? :wink: I would think it would work fine, if you said you were able to install Ubuntu 8.04 fine, but couldn't install 8.10.

how do I point it to F: ? I'm going to try the work around now but one my colleagues did something similar and it did not work. They also reinstalled grub but did not work either.
Click to expand...
Your Ubuntu entry itself does not need to point to F:/. :wink: It needs to be pointed at the "system" partition, which contains Bootpart (or NeoGrub), and that is what will point back at the Ubuntu partition! :smile:

Cheers.

-Coolname007
 
well as I mentioned earlier, I am having issues installing ANY new ver of linux os thats kubuntu, ubuntu and Fedora

for some reason the liveCDs load but will not install and tell me something about an IOAPIC error

the earlier ver such as 8.04 tells me that error has occurred and nothing more than that, after which it closes
 
When you put your CD in the drive and boot from it, you'll be presented with a screen with several installation options (install, try, advanced).

Select advanced and a textbox will appear at the bottom of the screen with some text in it. Add " noapic nolapic" to the end of that text and press <enter>.
 
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