grub versus "windows vista Home basic"

[replab_robin]

A colleague installed on a new dell E520 machine and kubuntu works fine. He had to reduce the windows partition before he could do the install so far so good. However, he's leaving and I wondered if we could get the machine to dual boot.

Apparently there are 4 primary partitions

hd0 is a dell diagnostic partition grub can boot this

hd1 looks like a 7Gb windows partition (mountable with ntfs/ntfs3g), but there's no hiberfil/bootmgr etc

hd2 looks like a 7Gb windows partition (mountable with ntfs/ntfs3g) this has a hiberfil and bootmgr etc.

hd3 is an extended partition with linux in it grub can boot this.

hd1 is non-bootable complains about missing bootmgr, hd2 starts to boot, but hangs hd3 is bootable as expected.

Now the mystery I cannot re-install (or get to a rescue prompt) from the dell reinstall windows cd/dvd. It loads files and then hangs. I've tried more than one (we have several). Can any grub expert point me in the right direction. Since the only thing we've done is to modify the mbr I don't see why we shouldn't be able to reinstall. DELL hardware people say this is a software problem, but the only software involved in a reinstall belongs to them. Does VISTA check the mbr somehow before doing an install? All the dual boot recovery scenarios I've found assume that you can get to a windows prompt.

[Qqmike]

Re: grub versus "windows vista Home basic"

Windows was there first. Then you installed Kubuntu. Where did you install GRUB to? the MBR of the hard drive? If so, GRUB should be able to boot both Windows and Kubuntu.
GRUB boots windows by chainloading. See the GRUB manual (in the references below) for those commands.
I’m not sure about how Vista works here, I’m not sure if it works differently from XP, although I’ve heard that there are some * issues *.

What I know is in the following How-To, which gives you the basic principles of GRUB and dual boot.
It sounds like something is damaged in your Windows, that it is unable to boot itself up?

How To GRUB Methods - Toolkit
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081671.0

Wish I could be more help.

[eriefisher]

Re: grub versus "windows vista Home basic"

Does vista show up in /boot/grub/menu.lst? If not, add it. If the vista boot stuff is ok then grub will hand booting off to it.

This line in the menu.list should work.

title Windows Vista
root (hd?,?) depends on your fstab
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

[replab_robin]

Re: grub versus "windows vista Home basic"

Does vista show up in /boot/grub/menu.lst? If not, add it. If the vista boot stuff is ok then grub will hand booting off to it.

This line in the menu.list should work.

title Windows Vista
root (hd?,?) depends on your fstab
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

I have this after the kubuntu stuff

title Dell Utilities
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
title Windows Vista Home
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
chainloader +1

What does the map stuff actually do?

I tried more poking around and found that the drive is SATA and is marked as raid in the bios. I'm wondering if replacing the MBR did something to the signage or whatever that raid needs. Apparently the raid bios is used to control the disk even if there's only one drive. There is an option to make the raid optional and I'm wondering if that might make a difference. This isn't a big issue for me as I don't want to use vista, but if the machine can't be used for vista my boss might be a little miffed. Turns out the e520 is a machine DELL will be offering with ubuntu soon so perhaps some further info will appear.

[K0LO]

Re: grub versus "windows vista Home basic"

The map command is used to swap disk drive identifiers and is only needed if you are trying to boot a Microsoft OS that is installed somewhere other than on the first hard disk. If you only have one hard disk then it is completely unnecessary.

Your grub menu.lst looks correct:

title Dell Utilities
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
title Windows Vista Home
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
chainloader +1

I don't know why the entry for Vista is not working unless the partition has somehow become hidden. On a hidden partition, Windows will start to load and then fail, so maybe the following is worth at try. Start up into Kubuntu and go to a terminal and type these commands:

sudo grub
unhide (hd0,2)
quit

I'm not sure why the Vista recovery DVD won't allow you to repair Vista. I doubt it has anything to do with the SATA/RAID settings in the BIOS. However there may be some other setting in the BIOS having to do with what appears to be a recovery partition on (hd0,1).