Boot problem...

[qyte]

I installed kubuntu x64 today and x86 yesterday. I have some bugs with x64 and don't know if it was wise to install it in the first place. The progress bar is not displayed well at start neither at shutdown and have the feeling that my system is less responsive with x64. I have AMD X2 4400 toledo and 2 Gb ram.

Another thing that will most likely make me install it fresh for a third time is the following.
My MBR is on IDE 0 master (hda) and i have installed windows on SATA 1 (sda) and i want to install
kubuntu on a partition in that sata drive as well (sda partition #2). It is installed just fine but the DAMN grub thing does NEVER give me an option to boot from windows and i am forced to use the windows recovery console to run fixmbr and therefore KILL linux installation.
The linux mbr lies in the hda again i think since i am booting my mobo from that drive.
PLEASE TELL ME WHAT can i do upon third install to avoid this problem

[penguin.ch]

Re: Boot problem...

http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/

[qyte]

Re: Boot problem...

Do you really think that you provided an answer for the newbie support forum?
PLEASE i am not stupid but since i am not familiar with linux AT ALL i used the newbie forum,
that means that i would require an answer that i understand.
Where EXACTLY on the link does it SPECIFICALLY says what am i supposed to do in my case? >

[EpsDel]

Re: Boot problem...

First of all, there is a file in every Linux distro, /boot/grub/menu.lst.
All the information needed to chose which OS to boot is here.
If the installer doesn't automatically add windows xp to the
boot options, you will have to edit the file yourself.

You'll need to open a Konsole. (System->Konsole)

(Write the steps down somewhere, since the file gets updated sometimes when upgrading)

sudo [editor] /boot/grub/menu.lst

Use instead of [editor] some text editor. I use vi, but i think it's too advanced for you yet.
Try nano. It's pretty easy to use it. If it doesn't exist, sudo apt-get install nano. Say yes. (You need internet connection).

Scroll down to the boot options sections.
Here's my listing of menu.lst (after I edited it):

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.15-27-amd64-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-27-amd64-generic root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-27-amd64-generic
savedefault
boot

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

You need not touch the Ubuntu entry (especially since you are not confortable with linux yet)
In fact don't even look at it.

You must add an entry just like mine for Windows XP to the file.

But there's a catch. Replace the line root (hd0,2) with your corresponding WinXP partition.

Here's how to do this: identify on which harddrive and partition WinXP resides.
In my case it's the first harddrive (hd0 - count starts from 0 (zero) rather than 1), the third partition (once again, count starts at zero). So the actual device that holds my windows partition is /dev/sda3.
See? First drive, third partition. That translates into (hd0, 2).
So let's assume you have windows installed on /dev/sdb1. That's the second drive, first partition. That translates (under GRUB naming) into (hd1, 0). Apply same logic for your case.

Some other things useful things: check in the file (at the beggining somewhere) that there's an entry like
default 0
and somewhere later
timeout 10

That's for the default OS to boot (change accordingly, count starts from zero) and time to wait until autoselct (10 seconds is reasonable enough).

Your file (since it got generated automatically) might contain some more entries - recovery, memtest, whatever. Don't touch those. Add your Windows entry at the end of those.

Take it easier with the reinstalls. Any OS can be saved with a little bit of knowledge and patience (I once had to recover my whole partitions layout).

Hope it helps.