Dual boot kubuntu and windows xp

[linux starter]

Hello all.

I have a system running windows xp and would like to install my new (just recieved via mail) kubuntu disk along side it. I tried it and then re-booted but it came up with something like:

GRUB Loading stage 1.5

GRUB Loading, please wait...
Error 21

My setup is two hard drives. I have one 20GB with xp on and another 20GB that is empty. When i tried to install, I made sure I selected the correct one but still had to re-install xp to get anywhere after my error trouble.

Any more info please ask.

Thanks for your time.

Mr. Linux

[wgaprotest]

Re: Dual boot kubuntu and windows xp

I see you "made sure I selected the right one". I'm confused. Do you mean you tried installing the kubuntu on the second, empty hdd? Or is 'the right one' the hdd that has the XP? To my mind, and my experience with installing variations of ubuntu/kubuntu many, many times, the 'right one' should refer to the empty hdd, as it leaves the xp hdd completely untouched. When I first tried the dual-booting routine awhile back, I really struggled with a number of howtos, the dd command, etc. Eventually, it was by accident that I found I didn't need to do any of this. I'd also try the install again, as I take it you haven't configured a system yet, so don't have much time invested in your installation?

Here's what I suggest if you do start from scratch again:
1. Make sure you understand partitioning and mount points. I thought I knew it, as I'd dual-booted between different windows os's before with Partition Magic 8 and its Bootmagic (Bootmagic is the same thing as grub, lilo, and ntldr). I'd even gotten them working with XP 64-bit Edition, which was really hairy 'cause PM8 working with only the 64-bit xp os will really screw it up.

2. In your bios, get the pc to boot to the empty hdd (but it searches the cdrom drive first before it tries to boot from any hdd), insert the cd, save the bios setup and exit. The pc will now reboot and start the install process from the cd.

3. At the very beginning of the partitioning section of the install, make sure you go to the very top of the screen, on the right-hand-corner, and select the empty hdd to install to. Create your partitions there, and on the next screen, make sure you've got the mount points looking like they're logically organized. By all means, mount the partitions from your xp hdd, too (leaving the detected filesystem of ntfs untouched and any partitions on that hdd unformatted) but the linux paritions will be formatted and put on mount points by you.

3. Then the only nerve-wracking part of the dapper installation is when it's trying to write the new partitions for the kubuntu to the new hard disk. For me it always said there were filesystem errors on the drive with the xp on it. I finally told it to ignore this and just continue. There was absolutely no harm done.

4. Towards the end of the installation it will ask you where to put grub. Let it put grub at the very beginning of the hdd where you've been installing the kubuntu, like it wants to do. Follow instructions to remove the cd and reboot, still to the same previously-empty but now not-empty hdd (ie. don't go back into bios to boot from the xp hdd again).

This should really work: soon you should see grub with an XP choice at the bottom. Arrow down to the XP, <enter>, and voila! XP boots with absolutely no need to "fool windows", fiddle with howtos or the dd command, floppies, vfat (fat32) copies of boot sector...nada.

How did I discover this? As I said: by accident. My son had his 18th birthday party 2-3 weeks ago and I took off to spend the night at a friend's, leaving them with a partially-configured kubuntu (or was it still a ubuntu?) livingroom htpc, which they were using to access his music on his pc in his bedroom, while other partygoers were listening to different music selections in his room. Yes, there was an XP entry in grub, but I really didn't think it would work without using the "fool windows to think it's booting from the first hard drive" technique I'd been reading about and trying to emulate -- to little avail.

I came back the next day and my son and one friend was on the htpc in windows xp. I asked him how he'd gotten into windows, thinking he didn't know how to get into the bios like I'd been doing to boot from the old hdd, and he said he'd simply used the xp choice in grub!

In every installation since then, I haven't needed to 'fool windows', go back into the bios, or work with the dd command at all. The drive I'm booting from is always the linux drive, and yet xp is one the other drive.

Hope this helps.

P.s. I now have a full working Lamp on my 64-bit htpc. Very soon I hope to install the ivtv drivers for my tuner, and then I can install mythtv. I knew almost nothing about linux prior to august of this year. I also lost the first 6 weeks of work trying to get Mandriva's 64-bit club powerpack version working cause I was given a free month's membership. I did the ubuntu-server package first, dapper of course, then the ubuntu desktop, and then the kubuntu-desktop. It's gorgeous :-) precisely *because* it works. :-) I still consider myself a raw newbie.

[linux starter]

Re: Dual boot kubuntu and windows xp

wow it seems that you went the hard way. I installed linux then xp on seperate hard drives and put a boot manager on an wrks fine now.