Windows will not boot.

[D92]

Re: Windows will not boot.

It turned out I could get to my XP by changing boot order in the BIOS. In other words boot hard disk B instead of hard disk A. This won't take but 30 seconds or so the check. Why don't you try that?

On one of my computers I can change the boot order by pressing F8 on start up. On the other I have to hit F1 to enter the BIOS. Someplace in there there will be a Boot Options menu - just change the order of the boot up device and see what happens.

Uhm would this work as i'm using GRUB?, and not window's bootloader?

[podunk]

Re: Windows will not boot.

It worked for me - most likely because I installed Ubuntu backwards.

It won't take but a few minutes to try, and it can't hurt anything. If it doesn't work just switch the boot drive order back.

If it doesn't work you're faced with the decision of what to reinstall.

[D92]

Re: Windows will not boot.

Hmm, didnt work, It didnt give me that error tho but now just displayed those hide and unhide lines, also: No other os would boot, and grub now displayes a 17 error, ( neither will it directly boot from supergrubdisk), any thoughts?

[podunk]

Re: Windows will not boot.

I just read all your posts. Have you backed your data?

Reading the output of
sudo fdisk -l
which you posted on  the 24th it reads:

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1          64      514048+   b  W95 FAT32
/dev/hda3            1276        9728    67898722+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5            1276        9728    67898691    7  HPFS/NTFS

The little asterisk thing means that W95(Windows 98SE) is your default boot partition on that drive. In other words Windows XP is not set up to boot.

As  analyticalman pointed out - Windows will want to be installed on the first partition of a hard drive. You can get around this by using the Osloader supplied with XP. The Osloader is not the same as the boot loader - which is what grub wants to point to. On a Windows dual boot the MBR points to the OSLOADER which allows you to chose which bootloader runs.

Kubuntu over writes the MBR for grub to run - which would not normally be a problem - but it is here. :-(

I spent about an hour in the MS knowledge base trying to find if there is a way to reinstall the Osloader, and can't find anything. I would hazard a strong guess that you can reinstall the MBR for 98 since it is on the first partition of your drive.

I would bet a double mocha Kubuntu that your XP is toast.You could try to use your set up disk for XP to restore the MBR - but XP isn't on the first partition and most likely it won't work.

I can understand wanting to keep 98 - it's fast and stable. I loved 98 SE! Why I'm here in fact, loved it, hated XP. But lets face it - it's not supported any more.

As time goes on more and more script kiddes will go looking for your 98 install and if you connect it to the internet it's going to be hacked. Once it's hacked it puts all your other OS's and data at risk.

My windows 98 and Xp both work on this machine. I have 98 in the first partition of drive B (hdb1) and XP MCE on the first partition of drive A (hda1). I used to use the BIOS to switch boot orders to chose the OS. Now they both work off of grub.

Kubuntu is installed with root on hdb2, swap is hdb5.

In order to have all 3 OS's run you will need to reinstall them *all.* If you have a fairly modern BIOS you won't have to change any jumpers.

Delete all partitions on drive A. Carve it up however you want. Install Win 98

***********Unplug the data and power cable to drive A***********

Delete all the partitions on drive B. Carve it up however. Install XP.

Plug everything back in and install Kubuntu, which can be in any partition you wish.

If you decide to live without 98 you can
Delete the data in that partition
If it's big enough you can use the Kubuntu Live CD or the System Rescue CD from
www.partimage.org
to transfer the files on your present XP partition to the old 98 partition. Sys the drive from the Install CD. Restore the MBR. Install Kubuntu again.

If the old 98 partition is to small you will need to delete and merge the 2 partitions, then reinstall XP and all your apps.

:-(

[D92]

Re: Windows will not boot.

I used boot & nuke to completly wipe clean my 80 gb harddrive.
Now i'm faced how to get 98 SE, Vista and Kubuntu installed tho, any tips?
Like partion with vista, then install 98, then vista and then kubuntu?

Thanks for your help so far , really appreciate it

[analyticalman]

Re: Windows will not boot.

Well - thats blown me out - I wouldn't even attempt it :P And I've got XP and about 15 linux distributions over two disks

I have a feeling that you are entering new territory and at the end of it you will be telling us how to do it! If you want to go a bit at a time you can put Vista on /dev/hda and as you already have Kubuntu on Hdb then use grub-install as before to reinstall Grub so you can dual boot - but I would google Dual Boot and Vista together first to see if there any tips. Good luck!

[podunk]

Re: Windows will not boot.

No experience with Vista (never will have any either.) but a quick read of the MS knowledgebase reveals that some things don't change - it will over write the MBR without the option to dual boot.

Since I don't know what I'm doing I would most likely
Install Win 98 on hda1
Unplug the drive
Install Vista on the 1st partition of the other drive.
Plug everything back up
Install Kubuntu and use grub to start the various OS's

Of course - you will soon be our resident dual boot Guru and I'll never have to write another post on the subject! :-D

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

[D92]

Re: Windows will not boot.

Haha, yes, I hope i'll become a "guru" in this :P
Anyway: I'm gonna wait until the final version of vista comes out, until then only 98 I think:P

Tho to get back to dual booting it,
You mean Vista on drive 1, 98 on drive 2, and kubuntu on drive 1/2?

[analyticalman]

Re: Windows will not boot.

Yes - the important thing is to have windows on the first partition of your disk(s)- linux can be on any partition

[D92]

Re: Windows will not boot.

Hmmm, I decided to install Xp over Vista and choose vista for my next computer:P

So I now have Win 98 SE on partion 1, XP on partion 2 and Kubuntu on partion 3, (all on the same harddrive).

Without kubuntu installed all went fine, but now that I have kubuntu installed, XP wont boot, it says it's missing a hal.dll file. Any thoughts?

Also: could someone guide me through the process of detecting/mounting drives in linux?

Dean out :P

[podunk]

Re: Windows will not boot.

As far as I know - haveing all 3 OS"s on the same hard drive will ***not*** work. You will need Win 98 on the first partition of one harddrive, XP on the first partition of the other. After the 2 Windows OS's are installed then you put Kubuntu where ever you wish, Linux is not a jelous operating system.

You need to make sure you install the Windows OS's so they don't see each other at install time, i.e. unplug the drive of the first install before doing the second install. Windows is sort of preadtory - it will do everything it can to make sure it is the only OS that runs on your rig.

To see the vairous partitons you have the command is

sudo fdisl -l

please note that is a lower case L not a 1 at the end.

A human readable output of your **mounted** partitions is

df -h

A how to to mount your WIndows partitions is here:
http://psychocats.net/ubuntu/mountwindows

[D92]

Re: Windows will not boot.

Its been fixed,
Formated the 80 gig drive

Installed 98SE
Installed XP
Installed Kubuntu

Working smooth now