Help with grub problem...

[Ben Edwards]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:05:23 -0500, TLT <turk at gulftel.com> wrote:
> Hello Ben,
> 
> Thanks for the reply. :)
> 
> You are the only person who has even bothered and I really appreciate
> it. After several days of looking and looking for help to come on the
> mailing list, I figured it wasn't going to come. :/

grub seems to cause a lot of problems, especialy on WinXP dual boot
systems.  I am on the documentation team and think we need to do a
grub newbie document.  I have noticed that the IRC chanel seems a
mutch better place to sort grub problems than the list - whitch is a
shame cos the IRC douse not get archived.

Hope you enjoy Ubuntu, I reed the list through gmail and alough it is
no consulation almost all of the email get a reply.  I sometimes loook
through the list for old emails without a reply, that how I emailed
you.

Hope you enjoy ubuntu.

ben
 
> As a result, I started digging and searching elsewhere. Finally I
> found out how to remedy the problem I was having. I am very familiar
> with numerous operating systems, but Linux would not really fall into
> the very familiar category if you know what I mean. :o
> 
> I had tried something similar to the solution I found but I could not
> seem to get past the read only flags on the menu.lst file. However, I
> did find the solution and it is fairly simple. I got close when I tried
> before but not close enough. :o
> 
> Here is the solution to my problem and I'm sure many others will have
> the same problem. Hopefully this will help them as well. :)
> 
> Open the grub menu.lst config file via a terminal by typing:
> 
> sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
> 
> Look for the line below in the menu.lst config. It will be the first
> entry for the various Linux kernals you can choose to boot into:
> 
> Code:
> 
> Title Ubuntu
> 
> Then either type or paste the code below right before the line above:
> 
> Code:
> 
> Title Windows
> root (hd0,0)
> makeactive
> chainloader +1
> 
> Change the hd0,0 to the partition or hard drive where Winblows is
> installed if necessary. Save the file, reboot and the computer will
> now boot into Winblows by default.
> 
> Also, there is a setting in the menu.lst for the amount of time the
> grub bootloader will wait before it boots into the default OS. By
> default this is apparently set to 3 seconds during the install. I
> changed it to 7 seconds to give myself a little more time to grab that
> ESC key if I want to boot into Ubuntu. :)
> 
> Thanks again Ben for your reply. It is much appreciated. :)
> 
> regards,
> 
> Lee Trice
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Wednesday, October 27, 2004, 4:22:19 AM, you wrote:
> 
> > I notice you have not had a reply to this.  I am afraid I can not help
> > but did see someone on the IRC channel getting help sorting what
> > seemed like a smiler problem.  I think there are issues with the way
> > grub and windows addresses the disk.  I would really like to get
> > something up on the wiki as it is a realy problem show stopper.  If
> > you do get help on IRC could you send me a copy of the IRC log.  If
> > you dont let me know and I will se if I can help some other way.
> 
> > Ben
> 
> > On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 17:20:16 -0500, TLT <turk at gulftel.com> wrote:
> >> Hello ubuntu-users,
> >>
> >> I read an article about Ubuntu Linux last week, and visited the
> >> website to find out more. After reading a bit I downloaded the
> >> warty-rc-install-amd64.iso an burned the CD.
> >>
> >> I proceeded to install Ubuntu and all seemed to go well, however after
> >> the install I discovered that grub had missed picking up that I have
> >> WindowsXP Pro installed on my machine. As a result I could not boot
> >> into Windows. The only options in the grub menu are the four Ubuntu
> >> boot options! Luckily I had a floppy laying around with the bootloader
> >> knows as GAG on it which I had previously played around with and it
> >> was already setup to allow me to boot into XP.
> >>
> >> The two hard drives are a Western Digital and a Maxtor. Both are
> >> 160Gigs. The WD has C: D: and F: partitions with WindowsXP located on
> >> the C: partition. The Maxtor has G: H: I: J: and K: partitions.
> >>
> >> I chose the manual option to format partition J: on the Maxtor to
> >> install Ubuntu. The Ubuntu install seemed to be doing fine and after
> >> the install I booted into Ubuntu. After playing around with it for a
> >> good while, I rebooted the computer only to boot back into Ubuntu! I
> >> rebooted again and brought up the grub menu only to find that
> >> WindowsXP does not exist there? Apparently the Ubuntu installation
> >> sees the WD hard drive as hdc and the Maxtor as hdd and/or hd0 and
> >> hd1.
> >>
> >> I have been using computers for many years. I have tinkered with and
> >> become very familiar with many OS's in the past including the AmigaOS,
> >> WinBlows of various flavors, QNX, MacOS, etc. As a result I'm fairly
> >> competent at many things, however I have never used grub before. I had
> >> installed Mandrake in the past but I chose to use Lilo as the
> >> bootloader while using it. I'm not really sure how to edit the grub
> >> menu.lst to get WindowsXP to show up and boot XP by default. I looked
> >> over the menu.lst over and kind of got an idea as to what to do, but I
> >> am unable to edit the file. I have tried using sudo during various
> >> attempts at editing this file, but it is read only and I can't edit
> >> it. I tried using sudo to set a password for root and it seemed to
> >> work, but even logged in as root I cannot edit the file or change the
> >> properties because it says I'm not the owner even though I'm logged in
> >> as root. :/
> >>
> >> My machine has an Athlon64 3400+, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 1Gig of
> >> Kingston Ram, an Asus K8V-SE deluxe motherboard, two 160Gig hard
> >> drives on different controllers, a Sony DRU-530A DVD RW and a floppy
> >> drive.
> >>
> >> I'm pretty much a Linux noob even though I have tinkered around with
> >> Mandrake before. Can someone tell me what I need to do to edit the
> >> grub menu.lst and what I need to add there to get WindowsXP in the
> >> menu and have it boot as the default OS?
> >>
> >> I got a reply from bugzilla saying that the issue I was having was a
> >> know bug on the AMD 64 platform, that it had been fixed upstream and
> >> that it would be fixed as soon as the Ubuntu team merge Debian
> >> unstable into Hoary. It was also suggested that I post to this mailing
> >> list for help. I was told that I should be able to edit menu.lst with
> >> sudo, although if it happens to be read-only then I might have to
> >> write the file forcibly and was advised for help on force writing the
> >> file and the correct menu.lst syntax to post here.
> >>
> >> All I have at this time is the basic Ubuntu install and the apps,
> >> editors, etc. that it installs by default. I do like the looks of it,
> >> and I think it will have a bright future. :)
> >>
> >> Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. At the moment the
> >> only way I can boot into XP is to use the GAG bootloader disk. :/
> >>
> >> regards,
> >>
> >> Lee Trice
> >>
> >> --
> >> ubuntu-users mailing list
> >> ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> >> http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
> >>
> 
> -- 
> later,
> 
> 


-- 
Ben Edwards - Poole, UK, England
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