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[Tom <question76859@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Question #76859 on Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/76859

Tom proposed the following answer:
The fact of being able to boot into Ubuntu shows that the Mbr is fine so
normally the problem would have been in the linux's menu.lst - However,
comparing menu.lst to the results of "sudo fdisk -1" shows that menu.lst
is fine and that the problem is within Xp and Vista.

There are a number of things we can try to help with fixing Windows,
such as accessing data on one drive to copy it safely to another drive,
then try checking each drive for (and fixing) errors, such as un-marked
bad-blocks and stuff.  Then it would be good to try using the relevant
Windows Cd to see if it can help fix errors inside Windows or if none of
those things work to reinstall that Windows on that drive and then start
the same process on the other drive.  It's likely that one will be a lot
easier to repair than the other, my money would be on Xp being the
easier of the two.

While Ubuntu can do the "fsck check disk" i would recommend using a different linux distro that's specifically designed to repair Windows problems - Trinity Rescue Kit
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=trinity
http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=1&front_id=12
Normally i avoid this one because having a command-line only (no nice Gui desktop, just a Cli) is a little unsettling for me so normally i would recommend Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix
but in this case it seems like you need to have more access to more tools to fix Windows so a good specialist distro like TRK is probably best.  Their forums are quite good at helping with this sort of thing too :)   Ubuntu or Wolvix would be great to use for the initial copying of data from the drive you set out to repair.  In Ubuntu go up to the "Places" menu and your Windows drives should be helpfully labelled "145.4 Gb Media" err, actually they are both going to be called something very much like that!  Note that Windows does often scatter some files such as pictures from cameras, emails, templates, MS Outlook files so if you notice anything missing then ask us (or the TRK forums or both) and we might be able to help figure out where Windows will have put stuff.  When copying the data from "Documents and Settings" i would copy the entire user folders across into a new folder called something like "Xp backup" and then skate through the folders to check i had got everything.  Anyway i would use the DistroWatch pages
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=trinity
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix
to navigate to the different distros download page, i think it's about the 9th line in the table on those pages), download and make a bootable cd of each using really cheap "write once" cds as they seem to work better for this type of thing than expensive Cds.  Here's an Ubuntu guide for making really great cds but it's about the same for other distros too
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto
Then test each cd first by placing it in the cd/dvd-drive and reboot the machine, you should get to an appropriate splash screen with a blinking cursor underneath, just pressing enter should get you to a working session which we call a "LiveCd session", here's a guide to help if that doesn't go perfectly
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD
Note that this guide is based on Ubuntu but should be about the same for most other distros, we all work much the same.  In ubuntu instead of a splash screen and blinking cursor we give a very nice menu with the top option called "Try Ubuntu without making changes to this machine" (something like that), but just pressing enter in all three cases will get you to a LiveCd session - not to the installer!  Ubuntu and Wolvix both have a nice desktop gui in their LiveCd but trk gives a command-line bristling with tools instead.  Ubuntu's LiveCd's firefox should get you straight to surjfing the internet, with Wolvix you have to press about 3 buttons in the Wolvix Control Panel to set that up, i would guess that trk has a Cli web-browser but i've not used it.

Right, anyway, the info from "sudo fdisk -1" shows that you have 3
physical drives each with a different OS; Windows on sda, Linux on sdb
and another Windows on sdc.  Also while sda & sdc have only 1 partition
per physical drive (perfect for Windows) sdb has 2 partitions which is
one of the perfect ways to have a gnu&linux installed.

However, it looks like sdb has been partitioned by a Windows partitioner
and could be tidied up a little for a slight improvement in performance.
Typing the command

free -m

will show how much ram you have and how much swap you have in Mb, which
is much easier for us to understand than how many cylinders on the drive
;)  If you have over 2Gb ram then swap probably doesn't matter so we
could leave it alone happily.

Given that sdb is 160Gb i doubt you have to worry about clawing back
<1Gb hard-drive space.  I find the numbers in "sudo fdisk -1" very
difficult to interpret but i wasnt after the stats on the drive, i just
wanted the addresses to use in menu.lst heheheheh :)  It gives a great
overview of what's going on whereas Windows usually tries to spread dis-
information in the interests of making things easier for us *shrugs*  In
this particular case it seems that what Windows is saying does relate
well to physical reality but it's extremely rare for that to happen,
hence part of the need for "sudo fdisk -1"

Something that's always confused me a little is the "fixmbr" because "fix" usually implies the thing was broken but when talking about the mbr it's not broken.  The term "fix" is used in the way it might be used in horse-racing or something - as in "i fixed the race so my horse would win at long odds".  Windows "fixes" the mbr to point exclusively at itself because it thinks its the only OS you should be using.  Linux "fixes" the mbr to point at the grub-boot-loader so it's menu will allow you to start booting into whichever OS you like that's it's found on your system.  After repairing either Vista or Xp the chances are that you'll need to re-fix the mbr to point back at grub
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot#Recovering%20GRUB%20after%20reinstalling%20Windows
In your case you can do this from any of the LiveCd sessions.  You need to get to a command-line and then type

su

grub

root (hd1,0)

setup (hd0)

quit

and then either close the command-line window or type

reboot

This should get you back to the familiar Ubuntu menu offering you all 3 OS's :)
Good luck with all this!
Regards from
Tom :)

Ps please feel free to ask for details about any of this!

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