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[mriniker <question76859@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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

    Status: Answered => Open

mriniker is still having a problem:

Thank you Tom!

Yowza! That's a lot to digest. Hmmm...on this system i had Windows XP
first...then added Vista...then came Ubuntu.  I have my reasons for all
of this as each OS has given me reason to keep...or maybe the other way
around;)

Anyway, I seem to remember that I could get these systems to load
individually by changing the bios settings such that the first hard
drive to boot from was the OS I wanted.  A pain to use that though and
Vista seems to like that least of all...is my motherboard the problem???

So I was hoping to use the Grub menu to handle all of this.  But neither
XP nor Vista load from Grub and even Ubuntu complains such that I have
do that 'exit' thing b/c of no 'resume image'. What is that anyway? A
power mgt issue?

QUESTION: In my case would it be 'safe' to start from the end and 'fix'
the mbr first? Won't hurt anything right?


Thanks!
Matt


--- On Fri, 7/17/09, Tom <question76859@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Tom <question76859@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Question #76859]: Multi boot system will not load...
> To: m_riniker@xxxxxxxxx
> Date: Friday, July 17, 2009, 5:15 AM
> Your 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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