Can I get back to Windows?

[TyBO]

Hi. I recently attempted to get my laptop running Windows XP to dual-boot XP/Kubuntu. Kubuntu works fine now, and boots by defualt, but I'm having trouble getting XP to boot at all.

Here are the steps I took to try to get my machine to dual-boot:

The first thing I did was clean up my hard drive. I got it down to ~18GB used space, and ~80GB free space. Then I defragmented the drive like crazy, until all my files were stored at the beginning of the drive. This was all done in Windows.

I restarted the machine and booted from the Kubuntu Live CD, then followed the install process. When it came time to partition my hard drive, I chose to do it manually. I put a 1GB swap partition at the end of the drive, then did a 60GB Linux ext3 partition at the end of the drive. In the end, my drive looked something like this:

|----Windows NTFS-----------------|----Linux ext3---------------------------------------|--swap--|

I continued the installation process, installing GRUB to the MBR.

Well now when I hit 'Esc' in the GRUB boot menu, I get a list of with three Kubuntu operating systems, but Windows XP isn't listed.

Does anyone know how I can access Windows XP now? Thanks a lot for the help.

PS: Sorry if my terminology is wrong or I omitted important details. I hardly know anything about Linux!

[Qqmike]

Re: Can I get back to Windows?

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

and edit your boot menu (/boot/grub/menu.lst) to include an entry for XP that looks like this:

title Windows XP that I Luv
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

(see the How-to for how to edit menu.lst as root, etc.)

I don’t know about those three copies of Kubuntu.

From Konsole, type
sudo fdisk –lu
to see your partitions
(you might post that here in case someone else may care to see it re your 3 Kubuntu’s). (-lu is: "l" as in "list" and "u" as in "units")

First try the edit to see if we can get XP to load.

Without editing menu.lst for now:
(This is a temporary way just to see if XP will boot up; later you can do the permanent edit of menu.lst.)
At the boot menu (that shows you your Kubuntu's), press the “c” key and type in those commands at the grub> prompt except at the end add one more and don't use the title line (press Enter after each command line):

root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

(Note the space after the word "root" and after "chainloader.")

[TyBO]

Re: Can I get back to Windows?

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

and edit your boot menu (/boot/grub/menu.lst) to include an entry for XP that looks like this:

title Windows XP that I Luv
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

(see the How-to for how to edit menu.lst as root, etc.)

I don’t know about those three copies of Kubuntu.

From Konsole, type
sudo fdisk –lu
to see your partitions
(you might post that here in case someone else may care to see it re your 3 Kubuntu’s). (-lu is: "l" as in "list" and "u" as in "units")

First try the edit to see if we can get XP to load.

Without editing menu.lst for now:
(This is a temporary way just to see if XP will boot up; later you can do the permanent edit of menu.lst.)
At the boot menu (that shows you your Kubuntu's), press the “c” key and type in those commands at the grub> prompt except at the end add one more and don't use the title line (press Enter after each command line):

root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

(Note the space after the word "root" and after "chainloader.")

Thanks for the response.

I edited menu.lst the way you recommended, but couldn't figure out how to use command line.

I just hit 'Esc' as the machine was booting up to get the list of OSs. I saw Windows XP there on the list, but when I selected it, I got the following error:

Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format

Press any key to continue...

[Qqmike]

Re: Can I get back to Windows?

Where is Windows? On what partition?
sudo fdisk –lu would tell.

Error 13 indicates GRUB is not reading something it knows or recognizes as multiboot.
Maybe Windows is not on the first partition (hd0,0)?
Instead of root (hd0,0), you could try
rootnoverify (hd0,0),
but let’s make sure XP is actually on (hd0,0).

Re the command line you mentioned:
After you hit “Esc” and see the boot menu, hit the “c” key and you’d get a GRUB prompt (grub>).

[TyBO]

Re: Can I get back to Windows?

Well, when I type in "sudo fdisk -lu" in Konsole, I get this:

Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders, total 195371568 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

  Device Boot   Start     End   Blocks  Id System
/dev/sda1  *  193422600  195366464   971932+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2    84052080  193422599  54685260  83 Linux
/dev/sda3       63  84052079  42026008+  7 HPFS/NTFS

So I'm pretty sure Windows is on the last one, sda3 (right?).

[Qqmike]

Re: Can I get back to Windows?

Ha! Yes!

Windows is on (hd0,2)
(the first hard drive, called hd0, the third partition, called partition 2 in GRUB, since counting starts at zero and is 0, 1, 2 = 3)

So, you'd want

title Windows XP that I Luv
root (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1

(and edit menu.lst as root and File-Save, File-Quit when done).

Or, to test it at the grub> (by pressing the "c" key):

root (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

(You don't need rootnoverify -- root is OK; use rootnoverify with Vista, though)

[TyBO]

Re: Can I get back to Windows?

Ah, perfect. Windows XP is running again. It's a shame, I erased all my Windows data after inserting the recovery disc in an attempt to bring Windows back. Good thing the important stuff is backed up on an external HDD!

Thanks for all the help Qqmike!

[Qqmike]

Re: Can I get back to Windows?

Good! You're Welcome. And thank goodness for that external drive!

[fleamailman]

Re: Can I get back to Windows?

I was just wondering if this could be the problem

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...19.0;topicseen

[Qqmike]

Re: Can I get back to Windows?

No.